I jumped right into the installation of vSphere 5.1 when it went GA a few days ago, and like most was surprised with the requirement to install vCenter Single Sign On (I’ll call it vCSSO from here). I think it’s great, but had several issues during the first few installation attempts, all around the database.

I did not want to use a locally installed SQL server, so I created a database on the same instance as my lab vCloud Director database. From there, I used the sql scripts that are included with the installation media (ISO\Single Sign On\DBScripts\SSOServer\schema\mssql). You do have to edit some of the sql files, though, but it’s simple. For instance, in rsaIMSLiteMSSQLSetupUsers.sql you simply need to set a Str0ngp@ssw0rd! and in rsaIMSLiteMSSQLSetupTablespaces.sql you need to specify where to place the database files.

I figured I’d step through creating the database using both routes, and even bypass the strong password requirement. Keep in mind, this is for home labs and likely not ‘best practice’ for the enterprise. Lets see how it goes…