This guide covers installing VAM on VMware vSphere, where the installer provisions the Talos Kubernetes nodes as virtual machines on a vCenter-managed cluster. It expands on the vSphere items in Prerequisites and is used alongside the main Running the installer walkthrough — the only difference is the Kubernetes → Select step, where you choose New cluster on VMware vSphere.

Who this is for. A vSphere administrator preparing the environment and permissions, and the operator running the VAM installer. If the installer is provisioning nodes on Hyper-V or you are bringing your own Kubernetes cluster, this page does not apply.

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How It Works

The installer deploys a Talos Kubernetes cluster on vSphere:

1. Downloads the Talos OVA (from the Image Factory, or uses a cached copy) and imports it into a vCenter content library.
2. Deploys the control-plane and worker VMs from that template into a resource pool, on a DHCP-enabled network, in Talos maintenance mode.
3. Detects each VM's IP address via VMware Tools.
4. Applies the Talos configuration to each node, bootstraps the cluster and retrieves the cluster credentials.

Re-runs are safe: if the content library, OVA template, resource pool, or VMs already exist from a previous attempt, the installer detects and reuses them rather than recreating them.

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Environment Prerequisites

Set these up in vCenter before running the installer:

Network Requirements

• The target VM network must have DHCP — the installer relies on it for initial IP assignment.
• The VMs must be reachable from the installer host on their DHCP addresses.
• VMware Tools must be able to report guest IPs back to vCenter (this is built into the Talos OVA).
• The installer host must be able to reach the VMs on port 50000 (Talos maintenance mode) and, after bootstrap, port 6443 (Kubernetes API).

Sizing

The installer applies the node sizing you choose in the wizard; the defaults are a good starting point:

A typical production layout (3 control plane + 4 workers) needs roughly 22 vCPUs, 44 GB RAM and 250 GB of disk in total, plus ~1 GB for the OVA template in the content library. Review sizing against your media volume with your Vizrt representative before committing hardware.

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Required vSphere Permissions

The vSphere account used by the installer needs a role with the privileges below. For simplicity you can assign the role at the datacenter level with propagation to children; for tighter security, scope it to the specific datacenter, host/cluster, datastore, network, content library and resource pool the installer touches.

Recommended Custom Role: "VAM Installer"

Content Library

• Create local library
• Delete local library
• Update library item
• Add library item
• Deploy from OVF template
• Read storage

Virtual Machine — Inventory

• Create new
• Delete

Virtual Machine — Configuration

• Advanced configuration
• Change CPU count
• Memory
• Disk change

Virtual Machine — Interaction

• Power On
• Power Off

Virtual Machine — Guest Operations

• Guest operation queries (read guest IPs via VMware Tools)

Resource

• Assign virtual machine to resource pool
• Create resource pool

Datastore

• Allocate space
• Browse datastore

Network

• Assign network

Read-Only / Inventory

• System.Read (verify connectivity)
• Inventory.Browse (enumerate datacenters, hosts, pools, datastores, networks)

Where to Apply the Role

Apply with propagation to children on: the target datacenter, the host / cluster that runs the VMs, the datastore used for VM storage and the content-library backing, the VM network / port group, the content library and the target resource pool (or its parent host or cluster if the installer creates the pool).

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Running the Installation

1. Prepare the vCenter environment and permissions above.
2. Launch vamctl.exe and follow Running the installer through the prerequisite and source steps.
3. At Kubernetes → Select, choose New cluster on VMware vSphere.
4. Enter the vSphere connection details. The wizard then lets you pick the datacenter, host, datastore, network and resource pool from live drop-downs populated from your vCenter.
5. Set the cluster topology and per-node sizing, review and start the install. The installer imports the OVA, deploys the VMs, waits for them to report IPs (up to ~10 minutes), applies the Talos configs and bootstraps the cluster.
6. Continue with the deployment and sanity-check steps as in the main walkthrough.

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Known Issues

VMXNET3 Network Adapter and Cluster Networking

With the default VMXNET3 adapter, the cluster's pod network (Flannel vxlan) can fail due to hardware checksum-offload issues. Either:

1. Use an Intel E1000 adapter for the VMs, or

2. disable hardware offload on the pod-network interface with a Talos EthernetConfig patch:

   apiVersion: v1alpha1

   kind: EthernetConfig

   name: flannel.1

   features:

   tx-checksum-ip-generic: false

If you hit this, contact Vizrt support — the patch can be applied during installation.

OVA Download Failures (TLS)

The Talos Image Factory CDN uses post-quantum TLS that native Windows tooling may not support. The installer works around this automatically (falling back to a bundled wget). If OVA downloads fail, ensure the installer host has internet access, or use a prepare-offline bundle so the OVA is fetched ahead of time — see Offline installation.

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Next Steps

• Post-install validation
• Configuration Service → Signing in