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ESXi 5.1 tips
I recently prolonged life of my older computer (now used mainly for experiments) with these specs:
- MSI K9N Platinum: MS-7250 m'board with NVidia
MCP55 Ultra
(also known asnForce 570
) chipset -
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
(64-bit 2 core CPU) - 8GB RAM (DDR2 667MHz) - maximum allowed
- few SATA disks, 200GB SATA disk (good old reliable Maxtor) used for ESXi
The only peculiarity of this motherboard is that after few years of service its MCP55 chipset started over-heating causing system lockup just few minutes after power up. I solved this issue installing additional big 12cm fan. Note: The airflow direction should go to chipset not otherwise - to ensure best cooling effect.
I decided to install ESXi there. I sticked to version 5.1 for these reasons:
- it is last version where "fat"
vSphere Client
is fully supported (and is the only managment interface that is fluent and fun to use!) - it supports VM version up to 9, which is also (accidently) version used by HashiCorp packer https://web.archive.org/web/20191001172136/https://www.packer.io/docs/builders/vmware-iso.html I'm big fan of Packer - using it to create Linux images for VirtualBox, Proxmox VE and ESXi.
- it works pretty well with my HW (AMD X2, and NVidia LAN cards - handled with (VMK)Linux
forcedeth
driver).
Why not use ESXi 5.5?
-
vSphere Client
striped away some features (for example edit of new VM version properties) but without giving any alternative (for free ESXi users - without vCenter)
Why not use ESXi 6.0?
- phasing out support for my AMD X2 CPU
- switched to Web Client only with very poor experience (2023: but for Linux clients it is better than .NET client that is not available for Linux)
- removed AHCI driver support (I have now additional PCIe AHCI SATA controller, so not funny), workaround exists, see ESXi-6-AHCI
Why not use ESXi 6.5?
- AMD X2 CPU not supported
- Web client still sucks - especially Download and Upload of OVF files (Oh, My God!)
There is one unbelievable limitation of ESXi/vmfs: it does not handle bad blocks on disk (even MS DOS does!).
So ensure that your installation HDD has no single bad-block - otherwise very weird problems will appear. ESXi will just reset controller and try again and again and again...
See this thread https://communities.vmware.com/thread/422764 and especially:
Am I the only one who finds it incredibly frustrating that in a product aimed at business environments, a major gap in resilience is provided by a community toolset instead of vmware?
And answer:
…
If you run your environment inside the recommended specifications = HCL- hardware,USV, no storage on local devices, no snapshots , never fill up a datastore and so on ... then VMFS is quite reliable.
…
WARNING!
Ensure that you have valid
VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5 License
key. I'm not sure if you can still get it (I have one when there was version 5 available on Download VMware vSphere Hypervisor for Free ).
As of 1/2020 only ESXi 6+ is on Download VMware vSphere Hypervisor for Free, however you can still
download it from My Downloads
- try this url:
NOTE: Ensure that you downloaded both:
VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.1.0-799733.x86_64.iso
VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-786111.exe
The VIclient is especially important - sometimes suitable version is no longer available from official downloads! See below for example...
WARNING!
Before installing Update 3 ensure that you are able download
VMware-viclient-all-5.1.0-3814204.exe
necessary to manage your ESXi. See text at the end of this section for details.
I tested ESXi510-201605001.zip
you can find it this way (as of 1/2020):
- go to "Product Patches": https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch
- select:
- "Select a Product":
ESXi (embeddable and installable)
- "Version":
5.1.0
- "Select a Product":
- click on "Search"
There should be list with 1st item:
- name:
ESXi510-201605001
- build number:
3872664
- details on: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2141429 - file:
ESXi510-201605001.zip
(click on blue "Download" button there)
To install ESXi510-201605001.zip
do this:
- transfer that file to your target ESXi (you can use datastore browser) - in my
case full path is:
/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/INSTALL/ESXi510-201605001.zip
- on your ESXi issue these two commands:
-
Query available profiles (notice
sources
keyword):esxcli software sources profile list \ -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/INSTALL/ESXi510-201605001.zip Name Vendor Acceptance Level -------------------------------- ------------ ---------------- ESXi-5.1.0-20160504001-standard VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported ESXi-5.1.0-20160501001s-standard VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported ESXi-5.1.0-20160501001s-no-tools VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported ESXi-5.1.0-20160504001-no-tools VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported
-
Typically I use
-standard
profile - to install this update use command (now withoutsources
):esxcli software profile update \ -p ESXi-5.1.0-20160504001-standard \ -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/INSTALL/ESXi510-201605001.zip
And reboot ESXi.
Now there is big problem:
-
you will be asked to upgrade your
vSphere
client -
but the link no longer works!
-
in my case clicking on link
Download vSphere Client
from my ESXi home page (athttps://ESXI_IP_ADDDRES
): -
just produces weird error:
An error occurred while processing your request. Reference #132.674d1502.1578745806.12de9023
-
and this VIClient version is even missing on official client list(!): https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2089791
So I googled a bit and find it on file sharing server:
WARNING! I'm not responsible for any damage! However both SHA1 and SHA256 signatures are OK (as of 1/11/2020). Now you can upgrade your VIclient and use it :-)
esxcli system version get
Product: VMware ESXi
Version: 5.1.0
Build: Releasebuild-3872664
Update: 3
It is a bit weird at first sight because New Virtual Machine...
wizard offers VM version 8
(or lower) only.
However this official page https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1003746 shows that ESXi 5.1 is supposed to support version 9
Finaly I found this way how to solve that problem:
- you will create VM version
8
inNew Virtual Machine...
wizard - then right-click on VM and select
Upgrade Virtual Hardware
- and voila! - when you click on Summary you should see:
- "VM Version":
vmx-09
- "VM Version":
List of NICs:
esxcli network nic list
Name PCI Device Driver Link Speed Duplex MAC Address MTU Description
------ ------------- --------- ---- ----- ------ ----------------- ---- ---------------------------------------------------
vmnic0 0000:000:08.0 forcedeth Up 1000 Full 00:16:17:98:XX:XX 1500 nVidia Corporation nVidia NForce Network Controller
vmnic1 0000:000:09.0 forcedeth Down 0 Half 00:16:17:98:XX:XX 1500 nVidia Corporation nVidia NForce Network Controller
Getting information (including Driver:
) about specific NIC vminc0
:
esxcli network nic get -n vmnic0
Advertised Auto Negotiation: true
Advertised Link Modes: 10baseT/Half, 10baseT/Full, 100baseT/Half, 100baseT/Full, 1000baseT/Full
Auto Negotiation: true
Cable Type: MII
Current Message Level: -1
Driver Info:
Bus Info: 0000:00:08.0
Driver: forcedeth
Firmware Version:
Version: 0.61
Link Detected: true
...
Getting IPv4 information:
esxcli network ip interface ipv4 get
Name IPv4 Address IPv4 Netmask IPv4 Broadcast Address Type DHCP DNS
---- ------------ ------------- -------------- ------------ --------
vmk0 192.168.0.XX 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.255 DHCP true
NOTE: Use NFS datastore to quickly transfer files from remote server to ESXi. Consider FTP as fallback - when NFS is not available.
FTP is fastest protocol for download/upload of big files. Yes it is insecure, but time is money... To download file from FTP server to ESXi SSH console do this:
# temporary disable firewall to unblock FTP ports access
esxcli network firewall set --enabled=false
# cd to your target VMFS directory:
cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/IMPORTS/
# example to fetch file from anonymous FTP
wget ftp://FTP_SERVER_IP/backup/My-ESXi-VMs/exported-proxmox/debian10-dev/debian10-dev.vmdk
NOTES:
- reenable firewall when done
- in my case the end of transfer sometimes finished with error
wget: error getting response
, but file seems to be OK. If in doubt usemd5sum -b my-file.vmdk
on both FTP server and client - the checksum should be same.
I got great idea - to convert my Proxmox VE 6.1 disk-image.qcow2
to *.vmdk
and then import it to ESXi 5.1.
At first I tried to misuse phony exported OVF and just replace vmdk
file - but there was little catch - both ovftool
and Deploy OVF Template...
of vSphere client complained that generated
VMDK file is too old, etc... but finally I found that vmkfstools
can be used to clone this old VMDK to ESXi compatible format.
So How I started:
# in Proxmox VE 6.1, VM was hosted on filesystem (NOT lvm-thin)
qemu-img convert -p -f qcow2 /var/lib/vz/images/my-image.qcow2 -O vmdk /...path.../Debian-dev.vmdk
Performance tip:
- ESXi is very slow when cloning VMDK when source and target is on same datastore
- Therefore I enabled NFS share on my NSA310 (ensure that you have latest firmware 4.70 - Zyxel maintains packages only for this latest version)
- Then I created on NSA310 hardlink from NFS share to my source VMDK file (NSA310 does not allow to specify SMB share as NFS share - only dedicated sub-directory) - hardlink spared me of copying large VMDK file...
- Then I Added new NFS datastore from NSA310 to ESXi (using vSphere client)
Now in ESXi 5.1
- at first I created target VM for Debian 10 (called
debian10-dev
) using GUI, but without HDD file. - than I did this in ESXi SSH console:
vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/nsa310/imports/debian10-dev.vmdk \ -d thin /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/debian10-dev/debian10-dev-disk1.vmdk Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned Cloning disk '/vmfs/volumes/nsa310/imports/debian10-dev.vmdk'... Clone: 100% done.
- NOTE: if you want to attach target
debian10-dev-disk1.vmdk
as SCSI (including PV) you need to edit thatdebian10-dev-disk1.vmdk
and replace:-
ddb.adapterType = "ide"
withddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
- it is a bit counter-intuitive, but
lsilogic
adapter-type is used for all SCSI types....
-
- now go back to your prepared VM in GUI
- click on
Add
->Hard Disk
->Use an Existing ….
- Done. :-)
- Power Up and Enjoy VM under ESXi :-) OK - install
open-vm-tools
etc, but in case of Linux it should boot fine.
To get best performance you should use PVSCSI driver even for system disk. However there is little
problem - the Win2008R2 driver is not included in stock /packages/5.1.0/vmtools/windows.iso
- guest
tools - part of ESXi 5.1 install (it seems that there are only Win2003 drivers).
However you can download more recent VMware tools from:
-
https://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/latest/windows/VMware-tools-windows-10.3.10-12406962.iso
-
Just add 2nd CD/DVD drive to VM (use 1st one for Win2008R2 ISO).
-
When asked for driver (
Load driver
button) browser and use Vista driver - in path like:X:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\Drivers\pvscsi\Vista\amd64\
-
it should be accepted by Windows installer and the installation should proceed without problems.
Tested on Win2008R2SP1 trial version - from this ISO:
7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_server_eval_en-us-GRMSXEVAL_EN_DVD.iso
Copyright © Henryk Paluch. All rights reserved.
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