On-premises and All-in-SDDC Horizon Pods: Download and Deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector into the Pod's vSphere Environment

Follow these steps to download and deploy Horizon Cloud Connector into the vSphere infrastructure of a Horizon pod that is deployed on premises or into a cloud environment with all-in-SDDC architecture. Performing these steps results in the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance deployed and running in your vSphere environment.

This procedure covers what to do when you have deployed your Horizon pod on premises or into a cloud environment with all-in-SDDC architecture and, therefore, must deploy Horizon Cloud Connector into the pod's vSphere environment.

Note: For background information on Horizon pod deployment architectures, see Horizon Pod Deployment Architectures.

If you are downloading Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 or later, the following procedure explains how to deploy the virtual appliance's primary node into your pod's vSphere environment.

If you are downloading Horizon Cloud Connector 1.10, the following procedure explains how to deploy the virtual appliance into your pod's vSphere environment.

Note: Unless otherwise specified, the steps in the procedure apply to all versions of Horizon Cloud Connector. These steps use the term "virtual appliance" to refer to either the appliance's primary node ( Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and later) or the virtual appliance ( Horizon Cloud Connector 1.10).

Important: You must deploy Horizon Cloud Connector into your pod's vSphere environment using vSphere Client. Do not deploy Horizon Cloud Connector directly into the ESXi host.

Prerequisites

• Verify that you have met the connector-related prerequisites described in Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services.
• Verify that you have met the DNS, ports, and protocols requirements for using Horizon Cloud Connector to pair a Horizon pod with Horizon Cloud.
• To communicate with the Horizon Cloud control plane, the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance must reach the Internet. If your environment requires use of a proxy server and proxy configuration for deployed appliances to reach the Internet, verify that you have reviewed the proxy-related information, known limitations, and known issues when using proxy settings with the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance. See the proxy-related information in Horizon Pod and Horizon Cloud Connector - Preparing to Onboard to Control Plane Services, Horizon Cloud Connector Known Considerations, and Modifying Proxy Settings for Horizon Cloud Connector 1.6 or Later.
• If you want to enable Secure Shell (SSH) access to the appliance with the recommended level of security before pairing the appliance with the pod, generate an SSH public key. You must register the SSH public key during the deployment of the appliance.

Procedure

1. As described in the prerequisites list, download the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance using the link provided in your subscription email.
   The Horizon Cloud Connector appliance is available as an OVA file and has its home location in VMware Customer Connect after you log in to customerconnect.vmware.com using your VMware Customer Connect account credentials.

   Important: To have the latest product fixes, security fixes, and the most up-to-date features, ensure that the downloaded version is the most recent generally available version or later. Currently version 2.2.x is the latest generally available version. If you previously downloaded a Horizon Cloud Connector OVA with a version prior to 2.2.x, log in to customerconnect.vmware.com and obtain the most recent version for pairing your pod.
2. Using vSphere Client, deploy the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance as an OVF template into your Horizon pod.
   For general information about deploying OVF templates, see the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration guide on the VMware vSphere Documentation page.

   The OVF deployment wizard has several steps, where you make typical OVF deployment choices such as which host, which datastore, which network, and so on. The Customize template step is where you provide details that are specific for the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance.

3. In the Customize template wizard step, complete the required items and specify those items that are appropriate for your environment.
   The input in this step is used to configure the virtual appliance.
   1. Specify a root password for the virtual appliance.
      Note: Ensure that the new password meets the security standards of a strong password. Verify that the password contains a minimum of eight characters with at least one capital, one numeric, and one special character.

      Important: Due to a known limitation, the OVF deployment wizard continues to deploy the virtual appliance even if you specify a root password that does not contain a special character. In this case, the deployment succeeds but you will be blocked from logging in to the virtual appliance's operating system after deployment. To ensure you can access the virtual appliance after it is deployed, verify that the password contains at least one special character.
   2. (Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and later) To deploy the primary node of the appliance, verify that the Worker Node option is deactivated. By default, this option is deactivated.
   3. To use SSH public key authentication for the ccadmin account, enter the SSH public key that you generated earlier.
      For more information, see Enable SSH Access to the Horizon Cloud Connector Using a Command Line Interface.
      If you do not need SSH access to the appliance before pairing the appliance with the pod, you can skip this step. You can defer registering a public key and enabling SSH access until after the appliance is paired with the pod.
   4. Specify a static IP address for the virtual appliance.
      Do not use IPv6 with the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance. IPv6 is not supported.
   5. In the Network section, the Pod Network and the Service Network fields are optional. These networks are used by Kubernetes within the VM and are not accessible outside the VM. They should be at the default value unless they overlap with the customer internal networks. By default in the Kubernetes CNI, subnet 192.168.240.0/21 is used to configure Pod Network and 192.168.236.0/23 is used for Service Network. If you are configuring a Worker Node these settings do not apply.
   6. If your environment requires use of an HTTP proxy server for your virtual appliances to access the Internet, configure the proxy-related settings.
      Important: Keep the following considerations in mind:

      • Proxy SSL configuration is not supported for the self-signed certificate for the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance.
      • To ensure that only outbound requests to the Internet route through the HTTP proxy, configure no-proxy hosts that bypass the proxy server when receiving internal requests from the appliance. At the minimum, for No Proxy For, enter the DNS subdomain of the Connection Server and vCenter Server instances associated with the pod that will be paired with Horizon Cloud Connector. You can also specify no-proxy hosts by entering an IP range, using a comma separator between entries as shown in the following example:

        .ad-domain.example.com, 10.109.*

        If you leave the No Proxy For setting blank, the virtual appliance fetches the Connection Server host names that are provided by the administrator or which are discovered. The appliance discovers Connection Server host names by querying the pod. It configures those discovered hosts as implicit no-proxy hosts.
4. Using vSphere Client, power on the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance.
5. When the appliance is fully powered on, use the vSphere Client's option to start the Horizon Cloud Connector appliance's console.
   • (Horizon Cloud Connector 2.0 and later) Allow up to 10 minutes for Kubernetes to complete its initialization process. During this time, the system displays a blue startup screen with the message "Configuring Horizon Cloud Connector (Primary) …" After the initialization is complete, the system displays the blue console screen with the URL address of the primary node. You will load this URL in your browser for the onboarding workflow.
   • (Horizon Cloud Connector 1.10) Wait for the appliance's blue console screen to appear with the URL address of the virtual appliance. You will load this URL in your browser for the onboarding workflow.
   The following screenshot is an example for a deployed appliance that has an address https://10.92.245.255/.
   
   
6. Complete the steps in Enable SSH Access to the Horizon Cloud Connector Using a Command Line Interface.
7. To use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance and resolve the host name, create a forward and reverse lookup record in your DNS server that maps that FQDN to the Horizon Cloud Connector virtual appliance's static IP.
8. Continue with the pod onboarding workflow by proceeding to Verify the Horizon Pod and Virtual Appliance Are Ready to Be Paired with Horizon Control Plane.