Manually Install NSX-T Data Center Software Packages on Ubuntu KVM Hypervisors

To prepare hosts to participate in NSX-T Data Center, you can manually install NSX-T Data Center kernel modules on Ubuntu KVM hosts. This allows you to build the NSX-T Data Center control-plane and management-plane fabric. NSX-T Data Center kernel modules packaged in DEB files run within the hypervisor kernel and provide services such as distributed routing, distributed firewall, and bridging capabilities.

You can download the NSX-T Data Center DEBs manually and make them part of the host image. Be aware that download paths can change for each release of NSX-T Data Center. Always check the NSX-T Data Center downloads page to get the appropriate DEBs.

Prerequisites

Verify that the required third-party packages are installed. See Install Third-Party Packages on a KVM Host.

Procedure

Log in to the host as a user with administrative privileges.
(Optional) Navigate to the /tmp directory.
```
cd /tmp
```
Download and copy the nsx-lcp file into the /tmp directory.

Untar the package.

tar -xvf nsx-lcp-<release>-ubuntu-trusty_amd64.tar.gz

Navigate to the package directory.
```
cd nsx-lcp-trusty_amd64/
```
Install the packages.
```
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
```
Reload the OVS kernel module.
```
/etc/init.d/openvswitch-switch force-reload-kmod
```
If the hypervisor uses DHCP on OVS interfaces, restart the network interface on which DHCP is configured. You can manually stop the old dhclient process on the network interface and restart a new dhclient process on that interface.
To verify, you can run the dpkg -l | egrep 'nsx|openvswitch' command.

The installed packages in the output must match the packages in the nsx-lcp-trusty_amd64 directory.

Any errors are most likely caused by incomplete dependencies. The apt-get install -f command can attempt to resolve dependencies and re-run the NSX-T Data Center installation.

What to do next

Add the host to the NSX-T Data Center management plane. See Form an NSX Manager Cluster Using the CLI.