An administrator must deploy a new VCF instance in a dark site (no Internet). How should binaries be downloaded before starting installation?

For a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) deployment in a dark site (an air-gapped environment with no internet connectivity), all required software binaries must be downloaded in advance. VMware provides the LCM Bundle Transfer Utility, which includes the VCF Download Tool (lcm-bundle-transfer-util). This command-line tool is specifically designed to read the VCF Bill of Materials (BOM), connect to the official VMware depot from an internet-connected machine, and download all the necessary installation and lifecycle management bundles. These bundles can then be transferred to the dark site and uploaded to the SDDC Manager.

B. While the files are on Broadcom Downloads, using the portal requires manually identifying and downloading numerous individual files, which is inefficient and error-prone. The tool automates this.
C. The VCF Installer (Cloud Builder appliance) orchestrates the deployment using pre-existing binaries; it does not have a function to download them.
D. SDDC Manager is deployed during the VCF bring-up process. It manages bundles post-deployment and requires them to be uploaded in a dark site scenario.

1. VMware Cloud Foundation 5.0 Documentation

"VMware Cloud Foundation Planning and Preparation Guide"

Section: "Downloading VMware Cloud Foundation Bundles for an Air-Gapped Environment". This section explicitly details the procedure: "You use the LCM bundle transfer utility to download bundles from the VMware depot to a machine that has an Internet connection."

2. VMware Cloud Foundation Lifecycle Management Documentation

"Using the Bundle Transfer Utility". This document provides detailed instructions on using the lcm-bundle-transfer-util script to download software bundles for offline use

confirming it is the prescribed method.