Creating a New SBC SWe VM Instance with VMXNET3

To install the SBC on a virtual machine (VM), you must first create a VM and allocate its resources (for example CPU, memory, and NICs), as well as configure a datastore to contain the SBC operating system and application software.

Create a Virtual Machine (VM)

Perform the following steps to create new SBC VM.

1. Login as user root on VMware vSphere client.

   1. Enter VM Ware host machine IP Address.
   2. Enter your VMware vSphere administrator user name.
   3. Enter your VMware vSphere administrator password. 

   VMware VSphere Client Login

   

   The vSphere Client main window appears.
   
   

2. In VMware vSphere Client main window, click Getting Started tab. Click Create a new virtual machine.

   New Virtual Machine Main

   

3. Select Custom in Configuration window, and click Next. Provide a Name for your SBC. The name can be up to 80 characters. Click Next.

   Avoid special characters for name. 

   Custom Configuration

   

   
   
   

4. From the Storage screen, select a datastore1 and click Next. Ensure datastore has at least 100 GB or more space. This datastore is required to store all log-related data files.

   Storage

   

   
   
   

5. Select Virtual Machine Version: 11. Refer to For VMware for more information.

   Selecting Virtual Machine Version

   

6. From Guest Operating System screen, make the following selections, and then click Next:

   1. Select Linux as the Guest Operating System.
      

   2. Select Debian GNU/Linux 6 (64-Bit) from Version drop-down menu.

      Guest Operating System

      

      
      
      

7. From CPUs screen, make following selections, and click Next. (In the following screenshot example, 4 cores are chosen). For CPU, memory configuration details, see For VMware. 

   1. Number of Virtual sockets: 1

   2. Number of cores per virtual socket: 4 (depending on whether all virtual NICs are used)

      Creating Virtual CPUs

      

      
      The following table provides the examples of socket determination based on the CPU and Cores per Socket:

      Number of Sockets Determined by the vSphere Web Client

      Total Number of virtual CPUs (CPU)	Cores per Socket	Number of Sockets Determined by the vSphere Web Client
      1	1	1
      2	2	1
      2	1	2
      4	4	1
      4	2	2
      4	1	4
      8	8	1
      8	2	4
      8	4	2
      8	1	8

   3. From the Memory screen, assign memory for the virtual machine, and then click Next. Refer to Hardware and Software Requirements > For VMware for memory size requirements.

       

8. Define Virtual Machine network interface connections (NICs) using following options from the drop-down menus. Then click Next to continue.

   Assigning NICs

   

   1. Select first network adapter (NIC 1:) for management interface. For example, the label can be MGMT which is created using Configuring vNetwork Standard Switches (vSwitches).

   2. Select second network adapter (NIC 2:) for HA interface. For example, the label can be HA.
   3. Select third network adapter  (NIC 3:) for packet interface 0. For example, the label can be PKT0.

   4. Select fourth network adapter (NIC 4:) for packet interface 1. For example, the label can be PKT1.

      These network adapters and labels are already created on the ESX host server. If you are installing for the first time on new ESX  host server, these network adapters and corresponding labels (MGMT, HA, PKT0, PKT1) needs to be created. For details, see Configuring vNetwork Standard Switches (vSwitches).

      Make sure that Network Adapters are mapped exactly in the following order as shown below:

      • First network adapter (Network Adapter 1) for management interface
      • Second network adapter (Network Adapter 2) for high availability
      • Third network adapter (Network Adapter 3) for packet interface 0
      • Fourth network adapter (Network Adapter 4) for packet interface 1

   5. Select Adapter type as VMXNET 3  for all interfaces (The VMXNET 3 virtual network adapter has no physical counterpart. VMXNET is optimized for performance in a virtual machine).

       

   6. Ensure all Connect at Power On check boxes are checked. This must be Power On always.
      
      

9. From the SCSI Controller screen, select LSI Logic Parallel as the SCSI Controller option, then click Next to continue.

   Selecting SCSI Controller

   

   
   
   

10. From the Select a Disk screen, select Create a new virtual disk option, then click Next to continue.
    
    

11. From the Create a Disk screen, make the selections described in the substeps below.

    Selecting Disk Provisioning Option

    

    1. In Capacity section, assign at least 100 GB or more disk space.

        

    2. In Disk Provisioning section, choose only Thick provisioning Eager Zeroed option:
       

       1. ThickProvision Lazy Zeroed  - Allocates the requested hard disk (virtual) during the VM creation. This type of disk pre-allocates and dedicates a pre-defined amount of a space for a virtual machine's disk operations, but it does not write zeroes to a virtual machine file system block until the first write within that region at run time.

       2. ThickProvision Eager Zeroed (recommended) - Pre-allocates and dedicates a user defined amount of space for a VM disk operations.

       3. Thin Provision - Creates virtual hard disk during runtime (on write operations). This provides more optimal hard disk usage, but it has some performance impact until it creates maximum requested virtual hard disk.
          
          

    3. In Location section, select Specify a datastore or datastore cluster and click Browse...  Select the datastore or NFS where ISO image is available.

       Specifying Datastore

       

    4. Click Next to continue.
       
       

12. From the Advanced Options screen, keep the default value SCSI (0:0) and click Next. The default virtual device node is SCSI (0:0).

    Selecting Advance Option

    

    
    
    

13. From the summary screen, review your VM settings and click Finish. If needed, click Back to return to the screen in question and make necessary adjustments

    Review and Complete

    

    
    
    

14. When you are satisfied with your settings, click Finish to complete the VM creation.
    
    

15. The virtual machine is created under host IP address with the specified configuration. See example screen:

    Created VM

    

    
    This creates the virtual machine.
     

16. After VM is created, you must manually enable autostart and autostop of the Virtual Machine. Enabling the autostop/autostart of Virtual Machine is useful, in scenarios where power is lost and later regained. This setting of VM helps autostart of VMs when the host machine is powered ON.
    To autostart the VM, perform the following steps:

    1. Select the host IP address from left-pane and click Configuration Tab. The Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown section is displayed.

       Virtual Machine Startup/Shutdown

       

    2. Click Properties link displayed towards the top-right window.

       1. In System Settings pane, you must ensure to select the Allow virtual machine to start and stop automatically with the system check box. By default it is selected.
          
          

          Enabling Auto Startup and Auto Shutdown of VM

          

       2. In Startup Order pane, select the VM, which you want to automatically start and click Move Up.
          The selected VM is displayed underneath Automatic Startup.

          Moving VM to AutoStartup

          
       3. Click OK.
          This completes the autostartup and autoshutdown settings for the Virtual Machine.