ESXi 6

Hello old|new friend. Like most folks I have been working with ESXi for more years then I want to admit. I have always ran a home lab, which including running our windows VM’s. Just over 2 years ago, I had a hyper-v project I needed to work on, and I converted my server to that technology. What was supposed to be a quick project, wound up running for a long time. 

With my recent motivation to move back to VMW technologies, it was time to rebuild to ESXi. The first step was to move the one VM that actually has a purpose. My wife has one windows application that she must use for work. I picked up a copy of Fusion and Windows 10. I must say its pretty slick when she 3 finger swipes between her Mac and Windows OS screens. 

Since our move, my servers are not as easily accessible and I needed to get the iLOM on-line for remote access. Simply plug in the Ethernet, right? Of course not, nothing seems to go down with out Yak Shaving. It seems there has been some java security updates and the remote KVM won’t start anymore. After a few hours I found a post on-line that has a work around. While it deprecates the security levels, it allows it to work. 

One of my new co-workers recommended using USB to boot/run ESXi to save the internal disks for VM’s. I decided to give it a whirl. A quick search on-line led me to a nice script to create the bootable USB thumb drive.  Worked like a champ, but alas the server wouldn’t boot to it.  Decide I was not in the mood to debug, and kicked it old school. Burned a CD and installed. 

The next issue that I hit was during install. At what seemed to be the end of ESXi loading, before it starts the install, it hung at loading kernel drivers. A quick search on-line led to a post about running headless. You can either modify the boot parameters or your Bios. I choose the bios route and the install worked on the next try.

I now have ESXi 6 U2 up and running. There are several, new to me features since I last ran ESXi. The first is that VMware now provides a web interface per ESXi host. Its somewhat similar to the vCenter appliance. It's a great addition and I am glad to have it. The other new feature to me is VMware Remote Console. This a great little app that installs on OS X that allows you to run console windows to your VM’s, through the new web gui. 

And as I always do, the first VM that went onto the new server is Ubuntu, running the World Community Grid.  My philosophy is that if the server is going to be on, burning power, it should be doing something worthwhile. Check it out and feel free to join the team.