Configuring VM Ware ESXi

How to Assign IP Address to VMware ESXi

1. Launch ESXi Console

To configure the ESXi, press F2 from the ESXi initial screen shown below.

2. Go to Network Configuration -> IP Configuration

Go to System Configuration -> Configure Management Network -> IP Configuration.

3. Change IP Address of ESXi Server

This will let you set the ip-address, subnet mask and default gateway of the VMware ESXi as shown below.

VMWare ESXi 4: How to Add Virtual Hard Disk (from Datastore) to a VM Using vSphere Client

If you are a sysadmin, who is responsible for managing multiple servers, you should learn the fundamentals of virtualization and implement it in your environment.

On a very high-level, you should get started by installing VMWare ESXi server, which can be managed using vSphere Client.

Using vSphere client, you can create several virtual machines.

If you have multiple hard drives installed on the server, you should first create a datastore.

Once a datastore is created, you can assign either full or part of the datastore’s storage to a virtual machine as explained in this article.

1. View Existing Disk Space Assigned to a VM

Launch vSphere Client -> Click on a specific virtual machine name from the left tree -> “Summary” Tab -> Under the “Resources” section in summary tab, it will display the following:

Provisioned: 24 GB
Not-Shared Storage: 24 GB
Used Storage: 24 GB

From here you can also notice that the datastore2 has 111.45 GB left.

Fig: Virtual machine Resources Disk Space Summary

2. Virtual Machine Properties

From the “Summary” tab, under “Commands” section, click on “Edit Settings” link, which will display the Virtual Machine properties window, as shown below.

Virtual Machine Properties -> Hardware tab -> Click on “Hard Disk 1″, which will display more details about the current disks that are assigned to the virtual machine.

Fig: Virtual Machine Hard Disk Properties

3. Add Hardware – Device Type (Hard Disk)

Click on “Add” button located at the top of the “Hardware” tab in the virtual machine properties dialogue, which will display the following add hardware wizard. Select Hard Disk and click Next.

Fig: Add Hardware Wizard – Select Hard Disk

4. Select a Disk – Create a new Virtual Disk

Select “Create a new Virtual Disk”. You also have an option of using an existing virtual disk, if it already has some space left in it.

Fig: Add Hardware Wizard – Select a Disk

5. Specify Virtual Disk Size and Provisioning Policy

In this example, since I know that datastore2 has 111 GB left, I’m using all of the available space from the datastore2.

In the Location, select “Specify a datastore” and choose the datastore where you want to create the virtual disk. In my case, I choose datastore2.

Fig: Specify Disk Size

6. Review New Disk Summary

Finally, review the options you’ve selected as shown below.

Fig: Summary of Virtual Hard Disk Creation

7. Virtual Disk created for VM

In the “Hardware” tab, you’ll now see a new hard disk listed as shown below.

Fig: New VM Hard Disk

8. Review New Disk Space for VM

Once the datastore is created, Click on a specific virtual machine name from the left tree -> “Summary” Tab -> Under the “Resources” section in summary tab, it will display that the provisioned size is 135 GB. Initially from step#1 above, it showed 24 GB. Now this shows the new virtual disk added to this virtual machine.

Reboot the virtual machine, for your operating system to pick-up this newly created disk space. If your previous disk is /dev/sda, this new disk will be /dev/sdb. You should partition and format this new /dev/sdb using fdisk mkfs command.



VMware: How to Create Virtual Machine and Install Guest OS using vSphere Client

Once you’ve installed VMware ESXi Server and vSphere client, you can start creating VM instance and install a guest operating system on it ( e.g. Linux, Windows, etc.,) as explained in this article.

1. Launch Create VM Wizard

Login to the ESXi server using vSphere Client. Provide the ESXi root username and password.
From the vSphere client menu, select File -> New -> Virtual Machine, which will launch the create new virtual machien wizard as shown below. Choose “Typical” for the configuration.

2. Specify the Virtual Machine Name

Specify the name of the VM instance in the “Name and Location” section. In this example, I gave db-server as the VM name.

3. Choose the Datastore

vSphere client will display all the datastore available in the ESXi server. In this example, there is only one datastore available with the name “datastore1″.

4. Choose Guest OS of the Virtual Machine

Choose from one of the following guest operating system that you would like to install.

• Microsoft Windows
• Linux
• Novell NetWare
• Solaris
• Other

In the following example, I choose Linux and “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (32-bit)” from the “Version” drop-down list.

Please note that creating virtual machine does not install the guest OS for you. You still have to do it once you’ve created the virtual machine.

5. Create a Disk for VM

Choose how much disk space you would like to allocated from the datastore for this particular VM. In this example, the available disk-space in the “datastore1″ is 130 GB. I’ve allocated 60 GB for the virtual disk of this particular VM.

6. VM – Ready to Install

The wizard will display your choices in the “Ready to Complete” section as shown below.

7. Virtual Machine Created – View Summary

Once the virtual machine is created, you can view the summary as shown below.

This displays following information about the VM.

• Guest OS of the VM
• CPU allocated for this VM
• Memory (RAM) allocated for this VM
• Disk space

8. Install the guest OS on the VM

Once the VM is installed, insert the guest OS CD in the cd-drive. In this example, the guest OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. So, I inserted the RHEL 5 cd in the cd-drive.

After this, you can install the Linux OS on the VM from the “Console” tab of the virtual machine as shown below.