Intro
Welcome to Part 6 of the AVI/ALB Lab In the previous post, we covered the deployment of the Avi Controller VM.
In this post we’ll cover the initial configuration of the Controller.
What is a Cloud?
Clouds are containers for the environment that Avi Vantage is installed or operating within. During initial setup of Avi Vantage, a default cloud, named “Default-Cloud”, is created. This is where the first Controller is deployed, into Default-Cloud. Additional clouds may be added, containing SEs and virtual services. Think of a cloud as a container of settings specific to the environment that it is configured for. For example an NSX-T cloud will have settings that allow Avi to deploy Virtual Services (load balancers) using the NSX-T infrastructure.
You could also have a vCenter cloud AWS, Azure, Openstack, Memos, Linux or Openshift/Kubernetes.
The Build
Make sure the Controller is powered on, it may take a while for it to fully boot and become ready so be patient.
Open a web browser and enter the URL for the controller http://FQDN or IP note that this needs to be http not https.
Until the controller is ready you will see this message
{"error": "Controller is not yet ready. Please try again after a couple of minutes"}
Or you may get a 502 Bad Gateway error.
You may have to refresh the screen but once the controller is fully up you will see this page.
Enter a password for the admin account and optionally add an email address then click Create Account
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init01.png?resize=370%2C512&ssl=1)
Enter your DNS Server IP, the DNS Search Domain then enter and re-enter a Backup Passphrase then scroll down.
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init02.png?resize=400%2C403&ssl=1)
Remove any NTP Servers that you do not require or and configure the NTP you do want then click Next
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init03.png?resize=401%2C260&ssl=1)
Configure your SMTP settings then click Next
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init04.png?resize=392%2C243&ssl=1)
NSX-T cloud is not part of the initial configuration wizard so click No Orchestrator
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init05.png?resize=403%2C458&ssl=1)
Finally select No for Support multiple Tenants
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init06.png?resize=399%2C188&ssl=1)
The initial setup is now complete and you be presented with the Avi UI.
![](https://i0.wp.com/vdives.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AVI-Ctrl-Init07.png?resize=648%2C95&ssl=1)
AVI/ALB NSX-T Lab Part 7: – NSX-T Cloud Configuration