App Volumes 3.0 Configuration

Today I will cover the configuration steps for setting up App Volumes 3.0. I previously covered the steps necessary to install App Volumes 3.0 in my last post which you can find here: App Volumes 3.0 Installation

 

Logging into App Volumes 3.0

With your new App Volumes 3 appliance powered on you should be able to login to the management console for it.

From a webpage enter https://FQDN/horizonadmin replacing FQDN with the name or IP for your App Volumes manager. The page should redirect if you forget to add the horizonadmin.

On your first login you will be presented with the General Setup menu. There is no login prompt for user credentials, this will be added once you configure the AD portion of App Volumes.

The first thing to setup is the Active Directory piece. Click Configure.

First you need to register your domain. Complete all the required fields with the proper Active Directory information as it relates to your domain. The domain account I used is a domain admin.

When complete click Domain Bind.

Next you must provide an AD group that will be assigned the Super Administrator access in App Volumes. This will be for administrator access to the console. It only allows a group to be configured so if security is a concern you may want to create a new group just for this type of access. I created a VMadmins group that I use for all Horizon View components. Type the group in the search box (A). Once you select from the results it returns you should see the group entered below in the Selected User Group field (B). Click Save (C).

You will immediately be presented with a Login Prompt. Here you must use a user account that is in the Super Administrator group you just previously permissioned. Complete the username and password fields then click Login.

 An opt-in message for VMware’s Customer Experience Improvement Program will pop up. Choose to participate or choose NO if you do not wish to provide information. Click Save.

 

App Volumes 3.0 Configuration – Getting Started

 

Now you will be back at the Getting Started screen and you should see 2 green checkmarks for Active Directory and Roles & Permissions. You will notice that vRops is the next logical configuration based on that screen. If you have vRops running, you could configure that now. I do not so I will circle back to this at a later date once I get it up and running in my lab.

The next thing to do is to configure App Volumes with your vCenter Server. Using the menu on the left side of the screen select Settings > Locations

Click on VCENTER located at the top of the screen. Then click New to add your vCenter.

Complete all the required fields in relation to your vCenter and environment. The AV Managers field should auto-populate with your App Volumes Manager as soon as you click in the field. When complete click Save.

If like me, you still have the default certificates in the environment you will receive the following error message ( Unable to connect to vCenter: Connection Failed! ). Click OK.

For now, I’m going to disable the vCenter certificate check feature of App Volumes. This is not a good practice as it minimizes security. A slightly better approach would be to at least import the self-signed certificate into App Volumes. I plan to follow up with another post with those steps, but for now here is the KB.  The best thing to do would be to use properly signed certificates for all components in your environment, including App Volumes.

To disable SSL Certificate Validation for vCenter you will need to SSH into the App Volumes manager or connect using the console.

From the console or SSH enter the following command:

/etc/wemi/utils/disable_ssl_validation.sh

Now go back to App Volumes Manager and resubmit your vCenter configuration by clicking Save. If like me, it timed out you may need to refresh the page. Then log back in and re-submit the vCenter configuration. This time around it should let you save your vCenter. Once saved it should look similar to the below screen.

Next we need to configure the files share for the AppCapture. Click on File Share (A) then New (B).

I have a share created on another server called AppVolumes which I will use. Give your share a friendly name and then complete the information as it relates to your share. Finally start typing your vCenter friendly name and it should fill in the rest for you under Destination vCenters. Click Save.

At this point the basic configuration for App Volumes 3.0 is complete.

Next we need to install the Agent in our guest operating system and set up the capture machine. Once the capture machine is ready you can begin capturing and creating App Stacks which are then placed on the file share we set up previously. From there the App Stacks get synced and can then be assigned to users in your environment.

Thank you for reading and feel free to leave feedback.