As a followup to my prior post on VMWare ESXi being free now, I’ve taken the plunge and changed over my home servers from VMWare Server 1.0 to ESX 3.5i.   The biggest thought was for performance and just something new to play with.

The first step was to see if I could get it installed on my existing hardware.   I’ve got an oldish Dell that is running a 2.8Ghz P4 and running VMWare Server 1.0 right now.  It has one SATA connector, so while not ideal, at least I can get a SATA drive on there to host the VMs.    Everything on it was IDE.    Armed with a 1GB Gizmo Jr. Flash Drive, I run the install.

No dice, no installable locations for ESX to install onto.  Seeing as I unplugged all the hard disks, i’m not surprised.   Then I found this (shamelessly stolen from other websites)

The difference between VMWare ESX 3.5 and 3.5i is that 3.5i does not come with the service console making it on 32mb in size.  This means you could have it running on a USB stick and below are the instructions on how to do it.

  1. Download ESX Server 3i Installable ISO
  2. Extract INSTALL.TGZ from the root directory of the ISO image using an IZArc
  3. Extract /usr/lib/vmware/installer/VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 from INSTALL.TGZ using IZArc
  4. Extract VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd from VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd.bz2 using IZArc
  5. Attach the USB flash drive and make sure you no longer need the data on it
  6. Use WinImage to transfer VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd to the USB flash drive
    1. Disk->Restore Virtual Hard Disk image on physical drive…
    2. Select the USB flash drive (Warning: If you select the wrong disk you will lose data!)
    3. Select the image file VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0-67921.i386.dd
    4. Confirm the warning message
    5. Wait for the transfer to complete
  7. Unplug the USB flash drive (Warning: If you forget to unplug the flash drive from the PC you might lose the data on your hard drives the next time you boot!)
  8. Attach the USB flash drive to the machine you want to boot (Warning: If ESX Server 3i recognizes local drives, you might lose the data on it, so make sure you don´t need it anymore or unplug all hard drives!)
  9. Turn the machine on and make sure the USB flash drive is selected as boot device
  10. Watch ESX Server 3i boot
  11. Configure

First of all 32MB?   Not at all.  Try 700MB+.  You’ll need at least a 1GB flash drive to do this, but based on current pricees, thats no big deal.   I followed these steps exactly and voila, it booted to USB and started the configuration process.

If you know anything about networking and virtualization, ESXi is going to be fairly straightforward to install, but as suspected, I needed at least a SATA disk to create the Storage Group (unless you have a SAN or NFS shares sitting at home).    I went out a the local TigerDirect and actually bought something locally - a 250GB Seagate SATA drive.    With that disk, I was able to create the Storage Group and then onto the task of how to convert my VMs over from VMWare Server 1.0 to ESXi.   I don’t know the entire list of network cards supported, but I can tell you ESXi can and will load the e100 or e1000 drivers for Intel Pro/100 and  Pro/1000 cards, which is pretty much all I use anyhow.   It detected both of mine just fine.

VMWare Converter was a complete bust.   In theory, it should have worked, but it kept giving me error about not being able to write to file.  A P2V conversion might have worked, but I didn’t want to spend the time considering it should be fairly compatible.

The VMWare Infrastructure Client (part of the ESXi install) allow me to upload files directly into the Storage Group, so I simply uploaded the VMDK files from my existing VMWare Server.    Everything online said to just run vmkfstool -i existing.vmdk new.vmdk (putting in the existing vmdk and the new one).   It expanded the vmdks to their full size, which I think is by design and then they were suddenly able to be used.

But wait, if you are trying to do this yourself, how did I even get into the command line for linux to even be able to do this since ESXi doesn’t allow command line access?

(Shamelessly stolen from the web)

ESXi 3.5 does ship with the ability to run SSH, but this is disabled by default (and is not supported).

1) At the console of the ESXi host, press ALT-F1 to access the console window.
2) Enter unsupported in the console and then press Enter. You will not see the text you type in.
3) If you typed in unsupported correctly, you will see the Tech Support Mode warning and a password prompt. Enter the password for the root login.
4) You should then see the prompt of ~ #. Edit the file inetd.conf (enter the command vi /etc/inetd.conf).
5) Find the line that begins with #ssh and remove the #. Then save the file. If you’re new to using vi, then move the cursor down to #ssh line and then press the Insert key. Move the cursor over one space and then hit backspace to delete the #. Then press ESC and type in :wq to save the file and exit vi. If you make a mistake, you can press the ESC key and then type it :q! to quit vi without saving the file.
6) Once you’ve closed the vi editor, run the command /sbin/services.sh restart to restart the management services. You’ll now be able to connect to the ESXi host with a SSH client.

This works like a charm.  Plus I love having access via ssh.   Its unsupported, but its not like i’m doing a paid call to VMWare for my home network.

I created new Virtual Machines and used the existing disks that were already converted and they booted up fine like nothing happened.   Just some reconfiguration of the network cards inside of the guests.   Performance wise, it seems WAY better, but keep in mind I’ve got a faster disk now, so I assume some of it has to do with this.

Downsides of ESXi over VMWare Server

  1. Parallel port pass through is not supported  and does not work in ESXi.  This does work in ESX and VMWare Server.   I was using this, but I have a feeling i’m the only one upset about this.
  2. Use of RAW disks (which I was using) is not supported and does not appear to work.
  3. USB devices are also not supported from all I’ve read (but haven’t tested).   USB for the Hypervisor works great.

Overall, I’m pretty please and consider the test successful.     The drawbacks I believe have to do more with the intended audience for ESXi, which are going to be in businesses and running more high end hardware.   Its definitely in my opinion a step up from VMWare Server.

 If I find anything else out interesting, I’ll be sure to post.   There are a lot of features in the Infrastructure Client i’ve yet to play with.