Install NSX Edge Automatically via ISO File

You can install NSX Edge devices in a manual fashion on bare metal using an ISO file. This includes configuring networking settings, such as IP address, gateway, network mask, NTP, and DNS.

Prerequisites

Verify that the system BIOS mode is set to Legacy BIOS.
See NSX Edge network requirements in NSX Edge Installation Requirements.

Procedure

Go to your MyVMware account (myvmware.com) and navigate to VMware NSX-T Data Center > Downloads.
Locate and download the ISO file for NSX Edge for Bare Metal.
Log in to the out-of-band management interface (for example, Integrated Lights-Out (ILO) on HP servers) of the bare metal.
Click Launch in the virtual console preview.
Select Virtual Media > Connect Virtual Media.
Wait a few seconds for the virtual media to connect.
Select Virtual Media > Map CD/DVD and browse to the ISO file.
Select Next Boot > Virtual CD/DVD/ISO.
Select Power > Reset System (warm boot).
The installation duration depends on the bare metal environment.
Choose Automated installation.
There might be a pause of 10 seconds after you press Enter.
Select the applicable primary network interface.

During power-on, the installer requests a network configuration via DHCP. If DHCP is not available in your environment, the installer prompts you for IP settings.

By default, the root login password is vmware, and the admin login password is default.
Open the console of the NSX Edge node to track the boot process.
If the console window does not open, make sure that pop-ups are allowed.
After the NSX Edge node starts, log in to the CLI with admin credentials.

Note: After NSX Edge node starts, if you do not log in with admin credentials for the first time, the data plane service does not automatically start on the NSX Edge node.
After the reboot, you can log in with either admin or root credentials. The default root password is vmware.
There are three ways to configure a management interface.
- Untagged interface. This interface type creates an out-of-band management interface.
  (DHCP) set interface eth0 dhcp plane mgmt
  
  (Static) set interface eth0 ip <CIDR> gateway <gateway-ip> plane mgmt
- Tagged interface.
  set interface eth0 vlan <vlan_ID> plane mgmt
  
  (DHCP) set interface eth0.<vlan_ID> dhcp plane mgmt
  
  (Static) set interface eth0.<vlan_ID> ip <CIDR> gateway <gateway-ip> plane mgmt
- In-band interface.
  set interface mac <mac_address> vlan <vlan_ID> in-band plane mgmt
  
  (DHCP) set interface eth0.<vlan_ID> dhcp plane mgmt
  
  (Static) set interface eth0.<vlan_ID> ip <CIDR> gateway <gateway-ip> plane mgmt
- (Optional) Create a bond0 interface for management HA interface with multiple interfaces.
  
  You can configure a bond management interface on an NSX Edge using the following CLI command. Use console to clear existing mangement IP before you create a bond and add an interface to it.
  
  Note: Only active-backup mode is allowed on a bond interface. It does not allows you to configure VLAN. So, you need to configure VLAN on an access VLAN that sits closer to the physical switch.
  
  set interface bond0 ip x.x.x.x/mask gateway x.x.x.x plane mgmt mode active-backup members eth0, eth1 primary eth0
Run the get interface eth0 (without VLAN) or get interface eth0.<vlan_ID> (with a VLAN) command to verify that the IP address was applied as expected.
```
nsx-edge-1> get interface eth0.100 

Interface: eth0.100
  Address: 192.168.110.37/24
  MAC address: 00:50:56:86:62:4d
  MTU: 1500
  Default gateway: 192.168.110.1
  Broadcast address: 192.168.110.255
  ...
```
Note: When bringing up NSX Edge nodes on non-NSX managed host, verify that the MTU setting is set to 1600 (instead of 1500) on the physical host switch for the data NIC.
(Tagged interface and In-band interface) Any existing VLAN management interface must be cleared before creating a new one.

clear interface eth0.<vlan_ID>

To set a new interface, refer to step 13.
Set physical NICs to be used by NSX-T Data Center dataplane from the list of available PCI devices.
1. get dataplane device list
2. set dataplane device list <NIC1>, <NIC2>, <NIC3>
3. restart service dataplane
4. get physical-port
After selecting physical NICs, restart NSX-T Data Center dataplane services for changes to take effect.
Note: Claim up to 16 physical NICs.
To avoid network configuration errors, verify that the physical NICs selected match the NICs configured in the transport node profiles.
Before creating NSX Edge as a transport node, reset the NIC list on dataplane.
reset dataplane nic list
Verify that the NSX Edge node has the required connectivity.
If you enabled SSH, make sure that you can SSH to your NSX Edge node and verify the following:
- You can ping your NSX Edge node management interface.
- From the NSX Edge node, you can ping the node's default gateway.
- From the NSX Edge node, you can ping the hypervisor hosts that are either in the same network or a network reachable through routing.
- From the NSX Edge node, you can ping the DNS server and NTP Server IP or FQDN list.
Troubleshoot connectivity problems.

Note: If connectivity is not established, make sure the VM network adapter is in the proper network or VLAN.

By default, the NSX Edge node datapath claims all virtual machine NICs except the management NIC (the one that has an IP address and a default route). If you incorrectly assigned a NIC as the management interface, follow these steps to use DHCP to assign management IP address to the correct NIC.
1. Log in to the NSX Edge CLI and type the stop service dataplane command.
2. Type the set interface interface dhcp plane mgmt command.
3. Place interface into the DHCP network and wait for an IP address to be assigned to that interface.
4. Type the start service dataplane command.
  The datapath fp-ethX ports used for the VLAN uplink and the tunnel overlay are shown in the get interfaces and get physical-port commands on the NSX Edge node.

What to do next

If you did not join the NSX Edge with the management plane, see Join NSX Edge with the Management Plane.