How To: Install and add multiple vCloud Director cells

There has been a few questions about how to add multiple vCloud cells and I have also made a big mistake once by not following the correct installation procedure. This is a small subset of what is listed in the VMware vCloud Director Installation and Configuration guide on page 26. You can download a copy by clicking here

Note: If you are adding a second cell to a mature vCD environment and have not configured a NFS transfer share then a few steps need to be taken before adding a second cell.

  • Logon to the original vCD cell(s)
  • Move any files in the original transfer data directory /opt/vmware/cloud-director/data/transfer to a temporary location
  • Shutdown the original vCD cell(s)
  • Logon to the second vCD cell
  • Mount the share and add it to /etc/fstab
  • Power on the original vCD cell
  • Move the files copied previously back to the transfer data directory

Note: Before performing the steps below you will need to copy the certificates from the first cell. Copy the certificates.ks file you created on the previous host to the new cell. The path to copy the certificates to is located in the responses.properties.

When installing an additional vCD cell, you have to add a switch to the command line to point it to the response file created by vCloud Director to allow it to connect to the existing database.

The response file is located at
/opt/vmware/cloud- director/etc/responses.properties
Either copy the file to the cell you are wanting to configure, or allow the file to be shared.

Once you have copied the response file, enter the following command:

installation-file -r < path-to-response-file >
The installation-file is the vCloud Director installation binary.

Once the installation has completed, login to vCloud Director and check that the second cell is displaying.

add multiple vcloud cells screenshot

The above screenshot demonstrate how to check you have added multiple vcloud cells.

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One Response to How To: Install and add multiple vCloud Director cells

  1. Ahmed Anwar February 19, 2014 at 9:00 am #

    Hi David, I performed the above steps but the 2nd cell doesn’t appear in the cloud cells. I appreciate your help. Thanks

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