VMware vSphere 5.0 - Installation Questions

Network_Engineer

I have a few questions on the installing VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0.

Server: Dell PowerEdge 2950 III
(# of CPUs: 2, CPU: 3.0GHz Quad Core 12MB Intel X5450 RAM: 16GB Buffered (8x 2GB) HDD1: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5" HDD2: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5", HDD3: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5", HDD4: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5", HDD5: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5", HDD6: 73GB 15K SAS 3.5", RAID: PERC 6I RAID 256MB Cache RAID 0-60, RAC: DRAC 5 Remote Access Card, PSU: 1 x 750 Watt Power Supply

I went into BIOS and enabled virtualization on CPU.

I installed Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 64 on Disc 1.

I installed VMware ESXi 5.0 on Disc 2.

When I boot from CD, and follow VMware install prompts, I get to System Customization.

Configured network management for static IP:
IP Address: 192.168.1.100
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

Primary DNS Server (Home Router): 192168.1.1
Hostname: vmhost

Custom DNS suffix: vmlab.local

Yes - to apply

Next screen says: Download Tools to manage this host from:
http://vmhost/
http://192.168.1.100/ (STATIC)

I am stuck at this screen.

I watched a YouTube video and the guy switched to his home screen on Windows and entered 192.168.1.100 on browser and downloaded tools to finish install.

How do I do this, if I have booted from 2nd disc to VMware install prompt?

Did I install VMware on wrong disc? I have 6 discs.

I originially downloaded VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0 to ISO and burnt on CD ROM disc.

Any advice is greatly appreciated! I am new to VMware and still learning.

MentholMoose

Network_Engineer wrote: »

I watched a YouTube video and the guy switched to his home screen on Windows and entered 192.168.1.100 on browser and downloaded tools to finish install.

How do I do this, if I have booted from 2nd disc to VMware install prompt?

You need to access it from a separate machine. VMware ESXi is a hypervisor and installed directly on a server, and any other operating systems you want to run on that same server must be installed in VMs running on ESXi. Connect to the URL, download and install vSphere Client, and connect it to the ESXi server. From there you can start creating VMs.

Network_Engineer

Thanks for the info! I installed VMware ESXi 5.1 hypervisor on server. I installed vSphere Client on my desktop. However, I cannot connect to the ESXi server, from the vSphere Client. I can ping and remote desktop to the server from my desktop.

What am I forgetting? Tools? I thought the tools were included with the download.

Essendon

Pre-ESXi5 I think the tools came with the download. Now you need to download them from vmware.

How are you able to remote desktop to the hypervisor or are you referring to the remote console? What username and password are you using to connect to the hypervisor? Tell us what error you are getting.

Paperlantern

In the vSphere logon/connect screen that comes up, make sure you connect using the root account and the password you set when you installed the Host. Barring that, like essendon said, provide us exactly what you are doing, and what errors you run into and at what point they occur.

jmritenour

I'm not following something here... how can you "remote desktop" into an ESXi host? Are you saying you installed vCenter on a Windows host, and that's what you're trying to connect to? *edit, re-read the post* Are you trying to do some sort of dual boot with Windows 2008 R2 & ESXi?

You should be able to launch the vSphere client (from your windows desktop) and connect to the ESXi host by the IP address 192.168.1.100, with the root user/password.

Network_Engineer

VMWare ESXi 5.1.0 (VMkernel Release Build 799733)
Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950
2 x Intel (R) Xeon (R) CPU x5450 @3.00GHz
16GB Memory



Download tools to manage this from:
http://vmhost/
http://192.168.1.100/ (STATIC)/
http://[fe80::222:19ff:fe8e:b9a21]/ (STATIC)


I click F2:

Configure Management Network:

Network Adapters: [x] vmnic0 Embedded NIC 1 (MAC Address) Connected
[ ] vmnic0 Embedded NIC 2 (Mac Address) Connected

VLAN: Not Set

IP Config: 192.168.1.100
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

IPv6 is enabled

Primary DNS: 192.168.1.1 (Home Router)
Alt DNS: 8.8.8.8
Hostname: vmhost

Custom DNS Suffix: hsd1.ga.comcast.net, vmlab.local

---

vSphere Client:

IP address/Name: 192.168.1.100
username: root
password: ********

Could Not Connect
vSphere Client could not connect to "192.168.1.100"
An unknown connection error occured. (The request failed because the remote server took too long to respond. (The server timed out).

---

I found my problem. I was trying to connect to ESXi, after fully booting to Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. I rebooted server and hit F10 (Utility Mode) and allowed ESXi to get to the download tools screen. Then I connected via vSphere Client from my desktop.

I now have vSphere Client with all options for creating VMs.