VMware releases the vCenter Server Appliance ISO image, which contains GUI and CLI installers for the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.

With the GUI and CLI executable files that are included in the vCenter Server Appliance installer, you can:
  • Deploy the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.
  • Upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.
  • Migrate Windows installations of vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller to the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance.
  • Restore a vCenter Server Appliance from a file-based backup.

Prerequisites

Procedure

  1. Log in to VMware Customer Connect.
  2. Navigate to Products and Accounts > All Products.
  3. Find VMware vSphere and click View Download Components.
  4. Select a VMware vSphere version from the Select Version drop-down.
  5. Select a version of VMware vCenter Server and click GO TO DOWNLOADS.
  6. Download the vCenter Server appliance ISO image.
  7. Mount or extract the ISO image to the client machine from which you want to deploy, upgrade, migrate, or restore the appliance.
    Note: ISO mounting or extracting software that does not allow more than eight directory levels is unsupported.

    For example, MagicISO Maker is unsupported on Windows. For Linux OS and Mac OS, Archive Manager is unsupported.

    For Mac OS, you can use DiskImageMounter.
    For Ubuntu 14.04, you can use Disk Image Mounter.
    For SUSE 12 OS, you can use the terminal. 
    $ sudo mkdir mount_dir
$ sudo mount -o loop VMware-vCSA-all-version_number-build_number.iso mount_dir
    Important: Due to a security change in MacOS Catalina, you must modify the security settings on your computer until the vCenter Server deployment completes. If you attempt to run the installer under MacOS Catalina without modifying the security settings, the vCenter Server installer reports the error: ovftool cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified. For more information, see KB 79416.

What to do next

Open the readme.txt file and review the information about the other files and directories in the vCenter Server Appliance ISO image.