Installing the Controller on VMware ESXi
The Client Accelerator Controller-v for ESXi is provided by Riverbed as an image that contains the VMX and VMDK files necessary to create the virtual machine. The Client Accelerator Controller-v for ESXi image is an installable open virtual appliance (OVA) package. OVA is a platform-independent, efficient, extensible, and open packaging distribution format. The OVA package provides a complete specification for the controller, including its required virtual disks, CPU, memory, networking, and storage.
The OVA file is a compressed .tar.gz package that quickly creates a virtual machine with predefined settings. It contains these files:
• OVF file—The XML description of the Client Accelerator Controller-v.
• Two VMDK files—One file contains the management system (the smaller VMDK) and the other contains the data store. The separate files let you resize the data store without losing any data in the management partitions.
• Manifest file—The SHA1 checksum of the OVF and VMDK.
• VMX file—The primary configuration.
To obtain the OVA package, log in to your customer account on the Riverbed Support site:
Before you begin, read the release notes for the product on the Riverbed Support site. They contain important information about this release.
Next, gather the hostname, domain name, IP address, DNS server, in-path interface IP address, netmask, and default gateway.
About the installation package for ESXi
The standard installation puts both VMDKs in a single local storage location. The local storage holds the virtual machine files and is referred to as a datastore during OVF deployment, but it is not used for the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) data store, which is used for network optimization.
Make sure that the data store you select has enough capacity for the OVA package to be installed. You need at least 25 GB. The larger VMDK containing the management system can be installed on any data store type. The smaller VMDK contains statistics. The data store must have enough room to expand to the required size.
Don’t share host physical disks (such as SCSI or SATA disks) between virtual machines.
Installing the controller on VMware ESXi
Installation procedures vary depending on whether you’re using the VMware VI or vSphere client. The examples in this document are created using the vSphere client.
To installing the controller using the OVA package
1. Open VMware vSphere, type the hostname IP address or name, your username, and your password, and click Login.
2. Choose File > Deploy OVF template.
3. Click Deploy from file, and then click Browse.
4. Select the OVA file (filename ending in .ova) and click Open to display the Deploy OVF Template page.
5. Click Next.
6. Verify that the OVA file (shown in the OVF Template Details page) is the one you want to deploy.
7. Click Next.
8. Type a name for the virtual machine in the Name and Location page.
9. Click Next.
10. Select Thick provisioned format (in the Disk Format page) unless you have a specific reason for requiring thin provisioning.
11. Click Next.
12. In the Network Mapping page, select the destination network name and select a network from the drop-down list to map the source network to a destination network. Set Primary to Aux and Aux to primary.
13. Click Next.
14. Verify the deployment settings and click Finish. Deployment status messages display.
A message shows the amount of time before the deployment finishes. When the deployment finishes, a message tells you the deployment was successful. You can edit disk size and provisioning settings later by right-clicking the name of your virtual machine.
15. Click Close.
The new virtual machine appears under the hostname or host IP address to the virtual machine inventory.
Configuring the virtual machine
Log in to VMware vSphere to configure your virtual machine, and then access the configuration wizard from the Console tab of the vSphere client.
To log in to vSphere
1. Open vSphere to display the VMware vSphere Client window. Type the hostname IP address or name, type your username and password, and click Login.
2. Select your virtual machine. Select the Resource tab and click Edit or right-click the name of your virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
Performing the controller’s initial setup
3. After you configure the virtual machine, perform the initial setup of the controller by following the instructions in its configuration wizard.
When using the wizard, press Enter to enter the default value. If you make a mistake, you can restart the configuration wizard by entering the configuration jump-start command at the system prompt. Click ? for help. Press Ctrl+B to go back to the previous step. To release the cursor from the console, press Ctrl+Alt.
4. In the vSphere client, click your virtual machine and select the Console tab to display the Console page.
5. Log in to the controller’s Management Console as administrator.
6. Start the configuration wizard.