Prepare for guest setup with hypervisor tools

With hypervisor tools, Abiquo can do the following:

• Set a fully qualified domain name (FQDN)

• Generate a random password at deploy and optionally send by email and/or SMS to owner

• Inject network configuration if no DHCP server is available

• Inject variables into the VM

Customize the Windows unattend file for hypervisor tools

For guest tools with Windows, the platform default is to use a Windows unattend file.

The default unattend file is Abiquo default Windows unattend file.

Guest setup with a Windows unattend file runs the first time you deploy a VM.
If the guest setup is not successful, the VM deploy or reconfigure will fail and roll back.

Using the Windows unattend file, Abiquo sets:

• Fully qualified domain name (FQDN)

• Guest password at deploy time

The Abiquo default Windows unattend file also includes these static settings:

• TimeZone with default W. Europe Standard Time

• JoinWorkgroup with default WORKGROUP

To configure a custom Windows unattend file for a datacenter

1. Log in to the Remote Services server as an administrator

2. Create your own custom unattend file and make the tomcat user the owner of the file

   1. By default Abiquo will replace the following variables:

      • $adminPassword

      • $domain

      • $hostName

3. Edit the abiquo.properties file and set the location of your custom unattend file. For example:

   // Path to Windows unattend file
   com.abiquo.esxi.experimental.customize.win.unattendfile=/root/windows_unattend.xml

Your Windows VMs will obtain their network configuration with DHCP.

Configure Windows with a custom specification for hypervisor tools

If you do not want to use an unattend file, then you can use a custom specification.
See Limitations of a custom specification to configure Windows.

On VMware, to use a custom specification to configure Windows, set the unattend file property to false.

com.abiquo.esxi.experimental.customize.win.unattendfile=false

You can also configure these properties to ensure that Abiquo waits for guest setup stages to complete.

com.abiquo.esxi.experimental.customize.configure.timeoutms=1200000
com.abiquo.esxi.experimental.customize.waitpassword.timeoutms=1200000

Configure guest initial password

The platform can set an initial password for a VM before it deploys. The administrator can configure this option in a VM template but the user may then edit the VM to change the option.

To configure guest initial passwords, do these steps.

1. To configure the length and characters, on the Abiquo API server edit abiquo.properties and set the following properties:

   abiquo.guest.password.exclude
   abiquo.guest.password.length

   For more details see Abiquo configuration properties

2. To customize messages see the following pages.

   1. Customize emails for guest password

   2. Customize emails for guest password SMS

3. To enable guest initial passwords, in Abiquo, go to Configuration view → Security (see Configuration view).

   1. To enable password emails, select the Enable password emails option

   2. To enable password SMS, enter the SMS gateway address

4. In Abiquo, load and configure appropriate VM templates! See Edit a VM template for guest setup below

Related pages:

• Display VM initial password

• Reset guest password in vCloud Director

Configure FQDN

Abiquo can set a hostname and fully qualified domain name (FQDN) before the VM is deployed.

If the user does not enter an FQDN, Abiquo uses the following default:

• Abiquo database ID (on Windows) or the VM_uuid (on Linux, etc); and

• VM network domain name (from VM NIC or VDC default network) or localdomain

To change the default to always generate the automatic VM name from the database ID:

1. Login to the Abiquo API Server as administrator

2. Edit the abiquo.properties file and set the following property

# Generate VM name from database ID. If false use VM_uuid on Linux and VM_database ID on Windows  
abiquo.api.experimental.hostname13charsFromVirtualMachineDatabaseId=true

3. Restart the Abiquo server to activate the property

After the user deploys the VM, the user can change the FQDN in the VM operating system. In this case, Abiquo will update the FQDN stored in the platform.

Prepare VM templates for static IP injection with hypervisor tools

By default, Abiquo uses DHCP to configure IP addresses.

If you are not using DHCP, prepare your VM templates for static IP injection.

For Linux with CENTOS:

1. Download a minimal CentOS OVA, for example, https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualappliances/files/Linux/CentOS/CentOS-7.0-amd64-minimal.ova/download

2. If Perl is not installed, then install it

3. Install VMware tools from vCenter, following the instructions for Option 2 at: https://webhostinggeeks.com/howto/how-to-install-vmware-tools/

For Windows:

1. Download a Windows template such as WS-2019-template-40GB-BIOS-1.vmdk

2. Install VMware tools

3. In Abiquo, for the Guest setup option, select Hypervisor tools, and select the Guest initial password checkbox

Edit a VM template for guest setup

To prepare a VM template for guest setup:

1. Go to Catalogue

2. Edit a template with cloud-init or hypervisor tools installed.

3. Go to Advanced

4. For Guest setup, select Cloud-Init or Hypervisor tools.

   1. For Windows on AWS, you can select from: CLOUDBASE_INIT, EC2LAUNCH_V2, EC2LAUNCH, EC2CONFIG

5. Select Guest initial password to generate an initial password according to platform configuration

   1. For Windows systems we strongly recommend this option

   2. The platform will log in with the template User and Password (see below) and change the Password to the guest initial password.
      The platform will send the guest initial password to the user via mail or SMS, and users can display it with the VM key button

6. For the User, enter the default user for the template

   1. On Windows, enter Administrator

   2. On Linux, enter root or another user that can run chpassword, with sudo and by always entering the password

      1. If sudo is not available, please contact Abiquo Support to configure the nosudoerrequiredforuser property

7. For the Password, enter the default password of the user on the VM template

   1. The platform does not save VM passwords

      1. On Linux, before deploying an instance template, edit the instance template's password to set it to the current VM password.

8. Select the Operating system. If required, enter the OS version. For more details see Set the guest operating system for VMware
   

   

9. Optionally, go to Variables and set variables for the VM template. The platform will add these variables to the VM using metadata or user data. See VM variables

   

10. If you are using Cloud-init or similar, you can enter a startup script or configuration on the Bootstrap tab. The platform will add this script to the VM and the VM user may also be able to modify it. For more details, see VM bootstrap script

    

Users can now automate their VMs with guest setup. See Automate first boot of a VM for guest setup