VCF Import Tool – Precheck

Overview

If there is a running vSphere infrastructure capable of running vSphere 8.0u3, then it’s likely that you can convert this to a VCF infrastructure. There is a tool that is required, but can also precheck an existing vCenter server for conversion.

Download

The tool is downloaded from support.broadcom.com, under the VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2.1 heading, under Drivers & Tools.

Using the Tool

The file that was downloaded should be copied to the vCenter that is being pre-checked. I copied up to the /root directory and also unpacked the tar file there.

tar xvf vcf-brownfield-import-5.2.1.2-24494579.tar.gz

Change directory into the unpacked directory and find the vcf-brownfield-toolset directory. Change into that directory as well. We find a file that is the main file for our purposes, here, the vcf_brownfield.py file.

When viewing the documentation for the VCF Import Tool, I could not find an example of the syntax for the tool. I found the options and when I used them like this:

python vcf_brownfield.py precheck --vcenter vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com --sso-user [email protected] --sso-password SuperSecretPassword

I received the following…

root@vcsa-0 [ ~/vcf-brownfield-import-5.2.1.2-24494579/vcf-brownfield-toolset ]# python vcf_brownfield.py precheck --vcenter vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com --sso-user [email protected] --sso-password SuperSecretPassword
[2025-02-24 17:39:26,080] [INFO] vcf_brownfield: Brownfield Import main version: 5.2.1.2-24494579
[2025-02-24 17:39:26,081] [INFO] vcf_brownfield: Please make sure you are always using the latest version of the scripts
[2025-02-24 17:39:26,088] [INFO] vc_precheck: Starting VCF Brownfield precheck script version 1.0.0...
[2025-02-24 17:39:30,286] [CRITICAL] vc_precheck: Unable to connect to vCenter: (vim.fault.InvalidLogin) {
   dynamicType = <unset>,
   dynamicProperty = (vmodl.DynamicProperty) [],
   msg = 'Cannot complete login due to an incorrect user name or password.',
   faultCause = <unset>,
   faultMessage = (vmodl.LocalizableMessage) []
}
[2025-02-24 17:39:30,287] [CRITICAL] vc_precheck: Unable to connect to vCenter. Exiting...

What I didn’t realize, because it’s not documented, was that each parameter requires the text as a string wrapped in a single quote. So instead, it should be run like this:

python vcf_brownfield.py precheck --vcenter 'vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com' --sso-user '[email protected]' --sso-password 'SuperSecretPassword'

Now I get results.

[2025-02-24 17:43:08,318] [INFO] vcf_brownfield: Brownfield Import main version: 5.2.1.2-24494579
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,319] [INFO] vcf_brownfield: Please make sure you are always using the latest version of the scripts
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,325] [INFO] vc_precheck: Starting VCF Brownfield precheck script version 1.0.0...
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,435] [INFO] vc_precheck: Connected to vCenter vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com in 0.11 seconds
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,435] [INFO] vc_precheck: Running pre-checks for vCenter vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com...
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,436] [INFO] vc_precheck: [1/10] VC BOM version check...                                   PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,471] [INFO] vc_precheck: [2/10] vSAN stretched cluster check...                           PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,491] [INFO] vc_precheck: [3/10] Supported storage available check...                      PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,505] [INFO] vc_precheck: [4/10] vCenter VM location check...                              PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:08,850] [INFO] vc_precheck: [5/10] VxRail registration check...                              PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:09,071] [INFO] vc_precheck: [6/10] NSX-T registration check...                               FAIL
[2025-02-24 17:43:09,087] [INFO] vc_precheck: [7/10] Standalone host check...                                  PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:10,381] [INFO] vc_precheck: [8/10] All cluster hosts connected to vDS check...               PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:11,513] [INFO] vc_precheck: [9/10] ELM ring topology check...                                PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:11,904] [INFO] vc_precheck: [10/10] WCP import check...                                      PASS
[2025-02-24 17:43:11,904] [INFO] vc_precheck: Pre-checks failed!
[2025-02-24 17:43:11,905] [INFO] vc_precheck: 6. NSX-T registration check -> VCF Brownfield Import does not support vCenters with NSX-T. Ensure NSX-T is not registered with the vCenter you would like to import

[2025-02-24 17:43:11,905] [INFO] vc_precheck: Pre-checks for vCenter vcsa-0.aaronrombaut.com completed in 3.47 seconds

Conclusion

Hopefully this will help others trying to run this utility. I suspect the single quote wrapped string will be required for performing the other script actions. Or, maybe I was the only one that didn’t realize it’s proper syntax, but I doubt that to be the case.