This page documents the process to update ESXi from version 3.5 to 4.0 if you have a standalone host or do not use vCenter Update Manager. After you have completed the firmware upgrade, you should also upgrade the virtual hardware version of your VMs as shown at the bottom of the page and also upgrade …
Below are 2 processes for installing ESXi 4.0 to a USB flash drive. A prior method for ESXi 3.5 would also work with 4.0. It uses WinImage instead of dd as shown below. If you need to embed a custom oem.tgz file into your installation. Install ESXi to a USB device with DD To run …
In the last few updates VMware has changed which drivers get loaded for certain SATA controllers (in particular the ICH7 / ICH9 / ICH10 models). This has been done to fix a problem that prevented host CD-ROMs from being used within a VM. However, in some cases after upgrading a user might find the below error after …
If you have no operating system installed on the host that you want to use for ESXi but you know the device vender and model, you can use a resource like http://www.pcidatabase.com/ to find out what the PCI vender and device ID will be. You can then compare that with this list. If the storage and network controller …
How do I find the PCI ID for my storage or network controller ESX 3.5? Read More »
By default a standalone ESXi host will keep 1 hours worth of performance data. vCenter Server will allow you to capture performance data long term, but if you have just the standalone ESXi host you can extend the capture of performance data to 36 hours with just a simple configuration change. This change will require SSH or console access …
The command vihostupdate allows you to extract patch files and to install them on your host. To extract the contents of patch use this command. To install the patch run the following command. To extract and install the patch in one step run the following command. Notes – the command will extract the patch into the current folder …
The command vifs.php can be used to move files to and from your ESXi host. As of Update 2 of the ESXi 3.5 RCLI, this command is not supported with VirtualCenter. If you only need to copy files from your ESXi host, then you can also use your web browser to retrieve files. ESXi allows …
The commands vicfg-user.pl (esxcfg-user.pl) are used to manage local users and groups on your ESXi host. The commands will always require the –entity (-e) and –operation (-o) options. With this command you can add, modify, list and delete users and groups. The vicfg-user.pl script has the following options. Sample Session vicfg-user.pl –server 192.168.1.33 –entity user –operation …
The commands vicfg-syslog.pl (esxcfg-syslog.pl) allow you to set a remote syslog server for an ESXi 3.5 host. This command will not work on ESX 3.5 hosts. If you connect via a VirtualCenter host with the –server option, you must then specify the ESXi host with the -h/–vihost <host> option. Once the settings are configured, there is …
The commands vicfg-snmp.pl (esxcfg-snmp.pl) allow you to enable, configure and disable the SNMP agent that comes with ESXi. Given the architecture of ESXi, it is not possible to add 3rd party SNMP agents to ESXi and given the diverse nature of SNMP management applications, ESXi only support SNMP traps and not gets. The SNMP agent …
