Downloading or creating Windows stemcells in Cloud Foundry

You can download or create the stemcells that VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs [Windows] needs to create VMs on your infrastructure.

Important Traffic between the Gorouter and Windows stemcells is not encrypted with TLS.

Windows stemcells

A BOSH stemcell is a versioned OS image wrapped with IaaS-specific packaging. BOSH uses a stemcell to supply the basic OS for any Windows VM it creates. A typical BOSH stemcell for Windows contains the following:

A bare minimum Windows OS skeleton.
A BOSH Agent.
OS Configuration files and common utilities.

For more information about stemcells, see What is a Stemcell? in the Cloud Foundry BOSH documentation.

Windows stemcell compatibility

Check the compatibility details before deploying and installing the TAS for VMs [Windows] tile. See Stemcells (Windows) on VMware Tanzu Network.

Depending on your IaaS, you can create or download a stemcell using the following methods:

Azure: To activate and download the Azure Windows Stemcell, see Configuring the Azure Light Stemcell.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP): Download the GCP light Stemcell for Windows 2019 Server from the Stemcells (Windows) page on VMware Tanzu Network.
vSphere: To create a stemcell, see Creating a Windows Stemcell for vSphere Using stembuild.
Amazon Web Services (AWS): Download the AWS light Stemcell for Windows 2019 Server from the Stemcells (Windows) page on VMware Tanzu Network.

Configuring the Azure Light stemcell

On Azure, the stemcell exists as an offering in the Azure Marketplace. To start using the Azure light stemcell:

Enabling the Azure Light stemcell
Downloading the Azure Light stemcell

Activating the Azure Light stemcell

To use the Azure light stemcell, you must first accept the corresponding Microsoft license agreement and enable the stemcell for your non-trial Azure Subscription through the Azure Marketplace.

Activating Azure subscriptions

To activate the Azure subscriptions that you want your stemcell to use:

Go to the Microsoft Azure portal and log in.
From the options on the page, click + Create a resource.
In the Search the Marketplace bar, search for BOSH Stemcell for Windows Server 2019.
Select BOSH Stemcell for Windows Server 2019 from your search results. A description of the Azure stemcell offering appears.
In the description, at the bottom of the page, click the blue banner that reads Want to deploy programmatically? Get started.
Review the Terms of Use on the “Configure Programmatic Deployment” page that appears.
Under Choose the subscriptions, click Enable for each Azure subscription with which you want to use the stemcell.
Click Save.

Accepting the License Agreement

To accept the license agreement for your stemcell:

To log in to to Azure with the Azure CLI, use the following command:
```
az login
```

To list the available Windows stemcells and find latest Windows stemcell urn, run the following Azure CLI command:

az vm image list --all --publisher pivotal --sku 2019

For example:

az vm image list --all --publisher pivotal --sku 2019
Offer                     Publisher    Sku    Urn                                                  Version
------------------------  -----------  -----  ---------------------------------------------------  -------------
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.1.050001  2019.1.050001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.2.022001  2019.2.022001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.3.041001  2019.3.041001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.4.044001  2019.4.044001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.5.006001  2019.5.006001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.6.025001  2019.6.025001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.7.012001  2019.7.012001
bosh-windows-server-2019  pivotal      2019   pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.8.028001  2019.8.028001

In the example above, pivotal:bosh-windows-server-2019:2019:2019.8.028001 is the latest Windows stemcell urn.

To accept the terms for the selected Windows stemcell for each Azure subscription with which you want to use the stemcell, run the following command:
```
az vm image accept-terms --subscription SUBSCRIPTION_ID --urn URN-ID
```
Where:
- SUBSCRIPTION_ID is an Azure subscription with which you want to use the stemcell.
- URN-ID is the urn for the latest Windows stemcell.

Downloading the Azure Light stemcell

To download the Azure Light Stemcell for use in VMware Tanzu Operations Manager:

Go to the Stemcells (Windows) page on VMware Tanzu Network.
Download the Azure Light Stemcell for Windows 2019 Server.

For information about how to deploy and configure the TAS for VMs [Windows] tile, see Installing and configuring TAS for VMs [Windows].