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Deploy appliance on VMware ESX

This section guides you through the steps to get the Anapaya appliance running on VMware ESX.

Prerequisites​

Before you can start, you need to have a VMware ESX server set up and access to the Anapaya appliance base image (VMDK format).

Installation​

Installation of the Anapaya appliance on VMware ESX involves creating a new virtual machine and deploying the appliance using the provided VMDK image.

System Requirements​

The Anapaya appliance has the following minimum system requirements when deployed on VMware ESX:

  • CPU: Minimum 4 vCPUs (passthrough or dedicated reservation recommended)
  • Memory: Minimum 4GB of RAM
  • Storage: Minimum 80GB of disk space
  • Network: At least two network interfaces (recommended three: management, WAN (SCION) and LAN)
Performance Recommendations

For production deployments, consider the following:

  • Use dedicated CPU cores with CPU reservation or passthrough for consistent performance
  • Allocate 4 vCPUs or more and 8GB or more RAM for high-throughput scenarios

Network Adapter Types​

For VMware ESX deployments, use one of the following network adapter types:

  • VMXNET3 (Recommended): VMware's paravirtualized network adapter, which provides the best performance and compatibility. Configure the network interfaces in the appliance configuration to use the VPP_VMXNET3 driver.
  • SR-IOV: For maximum performance in supported hardware configurations. Configure the network interfaces in the appliance configuration to use the VPP_DPDK driver.

Cloud-init​

You can use cloud-init to further customize the appliance during the launch process, for example to set SSH keys for the anapaya user.

#cloud-config
users:
    - name: anapaya
      ssh_authorized_keys:
          - ...

Refer to the cloud-init documentation for more examples and details.

warning

The Anapaya appliance will overwrite the SSH keys of the anapaya user as soon as the first configuration is applied. This means that the SSH keys you set in the cloud-init configuration will be removed. If you want to keep the SSH keys, you need to configure them in the appliance configuration during initial configuration.

Connecting to the Appliance​

Once the VM is started, you can connect to it via SSH using the anapaya user. If you configured SSH keys via cloud-init, use your private key for authentication. Otherwise, use the default credentials (username: anapaya, password: anapaya) for the initial login.

Configuration​

After connecting to the appliance, configure it by following the steps in Setup.

warning

The appliance is configured to use DHCP on initial launch. When you start changing the appliance configuration, you should first configure the interfaces section with the values for the management interface that were potentially assigned during VM boot via DHCP. Otherwise, you might lose connectivity to the appliance.

Relevant values include the IP address and routing information.