The vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) becomes an alternative to the Windows-based vCenter more and more. There are several reasons to install additional software in the VCSA. When you want to implement additional services like DNS for your lab, or you want to monitor the Appliance via Nagios or SNMP, you need additional packages. The Appliance is based on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, so you can use YaST to install packages. In this post I am going to show how to configure the vCenter Server Appliance to enable the installation of additional packages.
This is for educational purposes only. Installing software in VCSA is not officially supported by VMware and might cause issues.
Check SuSE Version
Check the SuSE Version to make sure to install appropriate packages
vcsa:~ # cat /etc/SuSE-release
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11
PATCHLEVEL = 2
In this example, the version is 11.2 (Taken from vCenter Server Appliance 5.5)
Add SuSE Repository
Add the repository for the appropriate version
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/[VERSION]/repo/oss/
vcsa:~ # zypper addrepo -f http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.2/repo/oss/ opensuse
Verify the repository
vcsa:~ # zypper repos -d
Download package metadata
vcsa:~ # zypper refresh
Press a to trust the Key
Do you want to reject the key, trust temporarily, or trust always? [r/t/a/?] (r): a
Find and Install packages
I am going to install nmap (a command line based portscanner) in this example
Use the zypper search command to find packages
vcsa:~ # zypper search nmap
Install nmap
vcsa:~ # zypper install nmap
YaST Control Center
You can also use the YaST2 Control Center to install and manage packages:
vcsa:~ # YaST
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Perfect! Thank you, I've been *dying* without nano on my vCSA over SSH, can't stand VI. THANK YOU!!!! :)
My 6.5 vCSA does not have /etc/SuSE-release, but it does have /etc/os-release, which shows:
NAME="VMware Photon"
VERSION="1.0"
ID=photon
VERSION_ID=1.0
PRETTY_NAME="VMware Photon/Linux"
HOME_URL="https://vmware.github.io/photon/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/vmware/photon/issues"
I'm guessing this post doesn't apply to my vCSA version?
Yes. The vSphere 6.5 vCSA is PhotonOS based, which is a completely new operating system. This post is related to the SUSE-based vCSA 5 which is outdated.