Hello and thanks for tuning in to govirtual.tv. My name is Greg Perry and the topic of discussion for this in formational video is the installation and configuration process used for VMware vSphere Version 4.0 ESXi installable edition.
First place to get started is this link on the radiant side at the VMware.com website which is the VM ESXi home page. There are two verses of ESXi. There’s a fully licensed version of ESXi that cost about the same as ESX, there’s also a free version. The difference between the two is that the higher order functions of Vcenter such as the DRS load balancer or the HA high availability module, VMware Vmotion live migration as well management by Vcenter is not available through the ESXi free edition.
Other than at it is a full blown bare metal hyper visor with all of the bills and whistle associated with ESX or ESXi including VMfs support fiber channel, stores support, resource management, the ability to run multiple VMs and hit hike consolidation ration a single host hardware platform, all of the benefits of standard ESX. Once again the only difference between the free version and the fully licensed version is the ability to manage ESXi with Vcenter including the higher order functions that come with Vcenter. So, if you have Vcenter and you want to be able to view motion and migrate and use DRS as well as HA for example, you would go for the fully licensed version of ESXi. If download the free version, it’s a stand alone bare metal which referred to as thin hyper visor which in previous versions is a 32 megabyte footprint. I don’t know what the most recent version of 4.0 is because it’s so new, but it’s a thin hyper visor with a much reduced attack surface. Meaning but there’s no underlying service console or Linux based component to the equation.
And we see as result of that, the administrate of infrastructure require to support and to maintain the ESXi hyper visors greatly reduced when compared with a traditional ESX host that has that Linux based service console.
Now, getting started at the homepage for VM where ESXi fir we see that right here is where we could register for free download installable version of ESXi and the free version or both one and of the same as the exact same image. The only difference is the type of license that we put in to it. It’s about a 300 mega byte image that we would download and it’s distributed in the form of an ISO image. We take that ISO image. We burn it on to a CD. We boot the host from that CD and we’re good to go for the installation process from that point forward.
Prior to the installation, we always would want to go to the resources button here and select compatibility guides, and navigate to the view VMware certified hardware compatibility guides to take a look at the System’s HCL. And what the System’s HCL is is a list of the different flavors of the hyper visors which are developed and sold by VMware and we see for ESXi 4.0 installable. What we would do is we would then plug in some information about that particular hyper visor for example. And this instance, “poweredge” because we’ll be doing an installation on to a Dell Power Edge server and search in the HCL.
Now the results from that hardware compatibility list we see is a list of all the different makes and models as well as processor configurations which are supported for ESX 4.0, also referred to as Vsphere ESXi and the various makes and models and versions 1955 Blades or 1950 Generation 3 and so on and so forth.
Once again it’s always a good idea and actually for production environment and requirement to ensure that you inspect the VM where HCL to ensure that your system, as well as any peripheral components such as IO Devices as well as the Storage fabric that we’ll be using are fully supported for that production environment.
Now, I’ve already booted this Dell Power Edge on to the installation media for ESXi installable version 4.0. And the very first flash screen that we’re going to see here is the VM where VMvisor boot menu and it’s going to prompt us for one of two options, either the ESXi installer or to boot from a local disk. If you don’t select the default option, the default option is the ESXi installer which kicks off after about ten seconds. And appear to hit the tab key right here that would also show us any options that we could edit. We’re just going to go ahead and hit the enter key and begin the process of booting the VMkernel and associated installation process with the ESXi. And after a few moments, depending on the installation media, the speed of the drive as well as whether it’s a locally attached CD Rom or if it’s some type of virtual media, anywhere from one to five minutes to initialize the entire installation.
Now, after the initialization process completes, we’ll see the familiar grey and yellow screen associated with VMware ESXi and all of the various installation modules to get loaded up and we will be presented with the ability to install ESXi on to the local hard drive. In this instance, that’s going to be on to the local 73 Gigabyte sass drive inside the Dell Power Edge 1950.
Now the next screen represented with this the VMware ESXi 4.0 installer screen. There are three options available to us here. If we hit the ‘Esc’ key, it’s going to cancel out of installation. If we hit the ‘R’ key, that’s going to present us with the repair console for previously installed version that may not have completed properly. And finally, ‘Enter’ to install. We’ll be ahead and hit ‘Enter’. Here’s the license agreement. Hit ‘F11’ to accept and where then presented with the drive that we want to install ESX on to which in this instance is going to be the local 73 Gigabyte sass again. And ‘F11’ to install will begin the installation process.
Now, after the installation is complete, we’ll be presented with the following screen that Vsphere ESXi 4.0 has been successfully installed. We would then want to remove the installation media from the disk or disconnect the drag or the ILO card. Enter to reboot. The server will then shut down and reboot and in a few moments, we’ll be presented with the console that we could then log in to which is the actually the VMkernel including the management network.
Now, after the installation process is complete and we’ve rebooted the machine, we’ll then be presented with the loading VMware hyper visor prompt. And once again, the grey and yellow screen that’s indicative of the ESXi and the VMkernel. And another thing to mention now with this Vsphere 4.0, even the ESX service console, we see this process of the VMkernel being initialized with that tattletale grey and yellow indicator that it’s the VMkernel that’s being initialized.
Now the first step for our post installation configuration is going to be the hit the ‘F2’ key to customize the system. First thing we want to set is going to be the configure the root password option. Enter on the “configure password” to set the root password for the host. Enter after we’ve confirmed it.
Next step would be to configure the management network which right now currently does not have an IP address. And one cool thing that we can do with the network adapter’s option is we can actually establish a nick team directly right here from the console itself which provides a layer of redundancy to our VMkernel management network. So we’ll go ahead and select both ‘vmnic0’ and ‘vmnic1’ which are the first and second on board nicks respectably on the motherboard of the 1950 itself. ‘Enter’ for okay. VMlan if we want to configure one. We’re not actually using one for the management network for this particular video.
Now our IP configuration, enter. It’s currently set to dynamic IP Address but doesn’t yet have an IP assigned to it and hasn’t gone out and got a lease. We’re going to establish static IP address and replace this IP address with 10.100.0.9 and a slash 24 subnet with the default gateway of 10.100.0.254. Enter to commit those changes. DNS configuration, and for our DNS server, we’ll establish a primary as well as our secondary and a really important option, the fully qualified host name. The reason why the fully qualified host name is so important is because for a higher order functions of Vcenter for example, high availability. HA is actually delegated and coordinated peer to peer and then adhoc PTP framework which is used to recover virtual machines that they fail and is used to locate the host which are authoritated for a HA cluster and is the first five host which are added to an HA cluster which become authoritated for the HA cluster and coordinate. Restart options for VMs and for entire host that have failed. If we don’t have a fully qualified host name, as well as at least a forward record established with our primary and hopefully secondary VMS servers, that’s going to cause gift get issues and potentially won’t allow us to deploy an HA agent in the event we ever want to run any type of VMware HA clustering. Enter to continue.
Last but not least, custom DNS suffixes. And after all of our changes have been committed, if we hit the “Esc” key one time, that’s going to prompt us to apply the changes and to restart the management network. Remember, once again, for VMware ESXi, they have deprecated the use of the service console. So, unlike VMware ESX host fro we have to have not only a service console IP address, but a VMkernel IP address as well. And the world of ESXi there’s one single IP address which is used for both the VMkernel as well as the management network.
‘Y’ to apply changes and ‘Esc’. And now we see that we could then point our web browser directly at this host to download the Vsphere client. And by pointing our web browser using a secured connection to the fully qualified host name of the ESXi host. We now see the web access which additionally gives us the option to download and install the Vsphere client which we can use for any additional post configuration options that we may need.
Now, I already have the Vsphere client installed on this host so I’m not going to remove it and reinstall. So again, cancel out of this. but assuming that we have the Vsphere client now loaded, log in using the newly assigned root password that we just set. Check this box to use our existing windows session credentials if we want and select the log in button. It’s going to prompt us to install the certificate not display any further warnings which we’re going to do. After which the new Vsphere inventory panel will be displayed which is quite a bit different than what you’re probably accustomed to using the older VMware infrastructure client.
We see here we have an evaluation license. After the step here we could either install our own license, use the host and 60 day evaluation mode or use the free license that we’ve downloaded from VMware for the licensing process. Okay. And that’s pretty much a wrap.
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