Configuring a corporate proxy for external requests in VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator clusters

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• A VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator three-node cluster requires transitioning from direct internet access to a mediated proxy configuration. Without this configuration, provisioning processes and external API integrations fail or time out when direct internet access is restricted.

Environment

• VMware Aria Automation Orchestrator 8.x

Cause

• The Orchestrator appliance nodes lack the necessary environment variables and container-level configurations required to route traffic through a corporate proxy server.
• In the Kubernetes-based Prelude architecture, proxy definitions must be explicitly defined at the OS level to be inherited by the orchestration pods.

Resolution

• To implement the proxy configuration, you must update the operating system configuration and restart the application pods on all nodes:

1. Log in to each Orchestrator node via SSH as root.

2. Navigate to and edit the proxy configuration file: /etc/sysconfig/proxy.

3. Configure the proxy settings and ensure you include appropriate NO_PROXY exclusions for internal traffic.
   
   # Example configuration in /etc/sysconfig/proxy

PROXY_ENABLED="yes"
HTTP_PROXY="http://your-proxy-fqdn:8080"
HTTPS_PROXY="http://your-proxy-fqdn:8080"
NO_PROXY="localhost, 127.0.0.1, .local, .yourdomain.com, xx.xx.xx.xx/8, xx.xx.xx.xx/16"

4. Save the changes.

5. Perform a rolling restart of the application deployment by running the following command:
   
   kubectl rollout restart deployment vco-app -n prelude

This ensures the containerized application synchronizes with the new networking stack without requiring a full appliance reboot