vCD Log Files

Here is a list of inportant log files in vCD and a brief description. The can be found at /opt/vmware/cloud-director/logs

• yyyy-mm-dd.request.log - This shows all the HTTP requests that have come from the user interface or the API. Very useful to run tail -f on this file to see where connections for users are going to.
• cell.log - shows information for when the vCD cell is starting up. You can use tail -f on this file to watch the vCD cell start up, you will see the % progress. The cell can be started using command service vmware-vcd start, and stopped using command service vmware-vcd stop.
• vcloud-container-debug.log - Debug level messages
• vcloud-container-info.log - Information, warning and error messages for this vCD cell
• vmware-vcd-watchdog.log - Brief message showing the last time the cell was started
• diagnostics.log - Empty unless diagnostics logging is enabled in the local logging configuration

Unable to create routed organisation network

I've just had an issue at a customer when they were unable to create any Routed Organization Networks.

Direct and Internal only networks were created fine.

The error that was shown in vCD referred to vShield Manager, and error 401, unauthorized.

I'm unsure what caused the issue, although there were issues with the environment as the ESX boot LUNs had been disconnected.

It appeared that the credentials for vCD to authenticate to the vShield Manager have in someway been corrupted.

So, I connected to vCD, selected the properties of the the vCenter server from the Manage & monitor tab, and re-entered the administrator credentails for vShield Manager.

Importing Virtual Machines into vCloud Director

So now that we have a nice new vCloud Director implementation, we need to think about how we are going to get our customers Virtual Machines imported, and placed in the appropriate vApp.

I'm going to assume you already have a process to import Virtual Machine(s) into vCenter. If your doing P2V, probably VMware Converter or something similar, if you are importing a Virtual Machine, then something more straight forward.

For a successful import into vCloud Director, the vCenter that you are importing your Virtual Machine(s) into will need to be attached to vCloud Director.




When you have got your VMs into vCenter, you will need to import them as vApps into vCD. Bear in mind that each VM will be imported into its own vApp, so you will have lots of single Virtual Machine vApps.

In vCloud Director, open up the Organisation that the VMs will be imported into, and select My Cloud -> vApps. Click the Import from vSphere... button

You will then be shown the Virtual Machines in the selected vCenter Server that can be imported. You need to select the required Virtual Machine, name the vApp, and select the Organisation vDC that you want to place it in.

Finally, before hitting OK, you will need to select Move VM or Copy VM... depending on whether you want the VM to remain in vCenter or not.

When all the VMs have been imported, you can group them into a single vApp if you want. Simply open the vApp in question, right click the VM (when its not running), and select Move ... You can then specify the destination vApp for this Virtual Machine. The source vApp will now be empty, and can be deleted. Repeat this for as many VMs that you want within the destination vApp.

The final thing you need to do is configure the networking for the newly added VMs in the vApp. I'm going to assume that the vApp has the appropriate networks added to it, so it is just a case of opening the vApp up, editing the Virtual Machines that have been imported, and allocating the correct vApp network to its NICs.