The Installation and Basic Configuration of VMware ESXi 5.5.0 on Dell C2100 FS12-TY

Server Specs:

• Dell PowerEdge C2100 FS12-TY
• 2 x 2.13GHz Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5506
• 6 x 4GB RAM – Total 24GB’s of RAM
• RAID Controller – SAS 6iR
  • 4 x 250GB WD RE 4 HDD’s

I have already set up my RAID Array as follows:

• 2 x RAID-1 (mirror) Virtual Disks setup

For this install I am using the Dell Customized Image of ESX as it fixes known issues and loads drivers for Dell PowerEdge systems. Google if you don’t have the customized Image.

First you need to install the Dell Customized Image onto a USB. I use Rufus on a Windows PC to do so. See the settings I chose for Rufus below:

(Download Rufus)

 

Eject the USB from your OS and go plug it into your C2100 and boot it up.

The first thing you will see when your USB is finally booting, after the BIOS and RAID controller info, is the following image:

Hit (Enter) on the Installer:

 

Next ESX will proceed to boot into the installer, you will see the following two screens load all the way through and disappear:

 

 

Once those two screens finish loading we will begin the installation.

On the following screen hit (Enter):

 

Then you will need to read through and agree to the EULA by hitting (F11) to proceed with the installation:

 

ESX will then scan attached devices that it can install on:

 

Select the USB drive that you inserted, not your Virtual Disks, and hit (Enter):

 

ESX will scan the drive again and then hit (Enter) to confirm the USB drive will be overwritten:

 

 

Next select your keyboard layout and hit (Enter):

 

Type in the password for the root user twice and hit (Enter):

ESX will scan yet again, and when that is finished hit (F11) to initiate the installation of ESX onto the USB:

 

 

ESX will begin to install and once it is finished hit (Enter) to reboot the server and complete the installation:

This may take a couple minutes.

 

 

 

After the reboot, ESX will boot into the following screen:

NOTE: For this tutorial I have DHCP enabled so ESX already has an IP issued to it, but you will want to set this to a static IP for many reasons, so I have covered this in my post: Set a Static IP on your ESX Host

Now go back to your computer, open a web browser, and browse to the IP that we saw in the previous step and you will see the following page:

 

Click on the “Download vSphere Client” link and Install that on your local computer.

Once VMware vSphere Client is installed, open it, and fill in the fields appropriately.

• IP address / Name: IP of ESX Host
• User name: root
• Password: Password you created

 

You will be prompted by a Security Warning, check the check-box for Install this certificate and do not display security warnings for “Your IP”. Then click Ignore

 

Next you will come to a screen like the following:

First thing you will need to do, is create a datastore. To do so, click on the blue link, click here to create a datastore…:

This will bring up the following window, where you will choose the Disk/LUN option and click Next:

 

Select one of the disks that you would like to create a datastore out of and click Next:

NOTE: I selected one of the two RAID-1 Arrays I set up prior to this tutorial

 

On the next screen leave the VMFS-5 option selected and then click Next:

 

Confirm the disk layout settings by clicking Next:

 

Name your datastore with a naming scheme that you see fit. I have named mine VM1-RAID1. Then click Next:

Leave Maximum available space selected, unless for some reason you are not applying all the RAID-1 to this host, and click Next:

Click Finish to create the datastore:

 

Next we are going to add an image to the datastore so we can create Virtual Machines off of that image.

In the VMware vSphere Client click on the Configuration tab and then click on Storage under the Hardware Section.
Here you will right click on your new datastore and click Browse Datastore…:

 

Create a folder in the root of that drive named Images and then click the Upload Icon and choose Upload File…:

NOTE: You can also choose to set up an NFS datastore to store your .iso and other bootable files. If you choos to go that route you can skip this step. I have already covered how to accomplish this in my tutorial: How to create and ESX Datastore from a Windows NFS Share

 

Once the .iso, for whatever OS you have chosen, has finished uploading, you will simply right-click on your host and select New Virtual Machine…, and proceed to set up your VM according the the specs that you need.

 

In the last step of creating the VM, where the tab on the left reads Ready To Complete and you have a Finish option, check the check box for “Edit the virtual machine settings before completion” and then click Continue.

In the popup window you will need to browse to the New CD/DVD (Adding) section and then select Datastore ISO File to Connect at power on. You are going to want to click Browse… and browse to the .iso that you previously uploaded, then click Finish.

That is it, wait for your VM to create and then power it on.

Once you power it on, you can open the console and set up network connectivity to the server as it meets your needs.

NOTE: After you complete the installation of whatever OS you chose, you will want to go back into setting, and set either set this setting to “Client Device” or remove the check next to “Connect at power on”.

 

If you have any questions, please contact me through the site.

Would you like to be able to have a Datastore full of all your .iso’s and other bootable files?

Well we can accomplish that by setting up an NFS Share in Windows!

First off we are going to need to set up an NFS Share on your Windows Server. To do this you need to make sure that you have the Server for NFS Role Installed, it is listed under the File and Storage Services > File and iSCSI Services Role. If you do not already have this installed. Install it now, it will not need a reboot.

Now to set up the NFS Share.

I created a new folder on the C:\ Drive labeled: NFS-VMstorage. Right click on the Folder and chooseNFS Sharing tab > Manage NFS Sharing. Here you just simply need to check the Share this folder check box and click Apply.

NOTE: Do not use SPACES in your NFS Directories Name, you will get an error and it will not share.

*¹ And then I created a Text File in that Directory for testing, you will see this at the end.

Now get into yor vSphere Client and navigate to the Host’s Configuration tab

You are going to want to choose Network File System and click Next

And here you will put in the servers IP for the Server: field and the folder name that you created on your C:\ Drive in the Folder: field. Datastore Name is totally up to you, I use the same as the folder name for easy identification.

Verify all your settings and click Finish

Now browse the Datastore from your vSphere Client and you will be able to READ anything from that share, so your VM’s will be able to use this files to boot from, etc.

NOTE: If you want to be able to write to this folder from esx, you will need to go back and change the permissions in the NFS Sharing tab

 
*¹ And now you can see the test text file that I created previously. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmm!.txt

Or you could just avoid all of this GUI stuff, SSH in and run the following command:

Generic: esxcli storage nfs add -H NFS_IP|NFS_HOSTNAME -s Share_mount_point_on_the_NFS -v DatastoreName

My Command: esxcli storage nfs add -H 192.168.0.168 -s NFS-VMstorage -v NFS-VMstorage

EXTRA: Set up NFS with Read-WRITE Permission for ESXi Host

NOTE: I have only tested sharing with restrictive permissions (to a single box) while both the ESXi Host and the Windows 2012 Server are joined to the same Domain. I’m sure if you can get DNS to resolve, you should be fine. 

NOTE II: This part did require a reboot for me.

After you have followed the steps above, log back into the server that your NFS share is on and browse to the share directory and select Properties > NFS Sharings > Manage NFS Sharing >Permissions > Add then add the esxi host with Read-Write Permissions.

After doing this I was able to move data to this datastore from other datastores.  I mainly used this to house my Template VM’s for labs, but there are plenty of scenarios in which it can be useful.

Is the KVM Console not working cause of damn Java?

Do you get the following “IOException – Authentication Failure!” error when you are just simply trying to connect to your server (CS24-SC) via the built in KVM/Console in BMC? – Turns out this is a really easy fix

 

It turns out you’re just using the wrong version of Java…

You will need to install the 32 bit version of Java. Since the CS24-SC is older hardware, Java updates will likely break your remote access. In the case that you have updated Java or for some reasons the KVM just stopped working, you should roll back your Java version. I have found success with Java 7 Version 55 and 51, I have seen others have success with most other versions of 7, but this is working for me, so why change it. I’ve put a link to the java archive below:

NOTE:Also make sure you are opening your .jnlp file with javaws.exe if you continue to see this error after installing the 32bit version. This may happen if you have both 64bit and 32bit versions installed.

Java Archive