Hi guys, this is my first blog for the first lab of VMware vSphere v6.5: Install, Configure, Manage. For the completion of all the VMware vSphere labs including this one, I have followed the instructions of the lab manual that was introduced to us by our instructor and also a YouTube playlist which was posted by NLB Solutions and the link to the playlist is as follow:
Before starting the labs, I would also like to inform you that the way I have completed the labs are a bit different than what is shown or described in the lab manuals/videos, and the reason is that I have done all my labs in a virtual environment that was provided to me by the institution rather than in a physical environment/machine. So there were some issues coming up while I was doing the labs and I will mention them all respectively.
So for my first lab, the main objective is to install an ESXi host version 6.5 and since I needed 2 ESXi machines, I created 2 of them. To do that first I had to create a virtual machine named as “EsXI1” for the first ESXi virtual machine. Then I had to find the ISO file from the Datastores in “TALOS” which is the name of the environment where I was working on my labs and then I selected the the hardware specs. for the ESXi machine. The above steps are all done in “New Virtual Machine” wizard in the TALOS; a VMware virtual environment. After that I run the virtual machine and I followed the installation wizard where I had to select the storage space, input language, setup a root password, confirm installation, etc., which will be shown in details below.
Here is how the first lab was done:
Click on the “New Virtual Machine” option.
Then select “Create a new virtual machine”
Then give the virtual machine a name. Since I want to use it as my virtual ESXi machine, I named it “EsXI1”.
After that make sure to select an appropriate compute resource and storage space.
Then select the compatibility. Make sure that you select it “ESXi 6.5 and later” because we are using the ESXi v6.5 for the labs.
In the guest OS section, select the family and the version. In this case it is neither Windows nor Linux, so I selected ‘Other’ and in the version dropdown menu, I selected VMware ESXi 6.5 or later.
In the next area, I entered the following hardware specs. for the first ESXi machine. I didnot want to use alot of storage space so I went with 40 GB. To add the ISO file in the machine, we can select it from the “CD/DVD drive 1” where we will browse the datastores and find the ESxi ISO.
Once you have selected that, click on ‘Next’ and then a summary of the machine specs. will be displayed, and click on ‘Finish’. This is the process on how to create a virtual machine for the ESXi host.
To start the installation, run the machine and follow the installation wizard which looks like the following:
Press ‘Enter’ and then it will load the ESXi installer.
After the loading is over a pop-up message will appear.
After that press ‘Enter’ and accept the ‘EULA’.
Then select a storage space/ disk to install the ESXi , select the language and enter the root account’s password. After that, a pop-up window will appear asking for the confirmation of the install.
Continue with that and when the installation is complete, it will ask whether you want to remove the installation media before rebooting or do you want to reboot the server. Please go for the ‘remove installation media’ option and after that the machine should shut down and start rebooting. Once that is complete you can see the ESXi landing page which looks like the following :
I have created the second ESXi machine and installed ESXi following the above steps. I have named the second machine as ‘EsXI2’have modified the hardware specs to the following:
After installing ESXi in ‘ExSI2’ the ESXi landing page looks like the following:
After the completion of Lab 1, I have created a virtual machine that had Windows 10 server installed. This virtual Windows 10 server 2016 machine will be used to login to the virtual ESXi machines to create, install and configure other components of the VMware labs in the coming labs. After the installation of Windows Server, I have configured the network adaptor so that the machine could have internet access to it and I downloaded Firefox and set it as my default browser for this virtual machine. Below are the specs of the virtual Windows server that was created and the Network adaptor configuration.
That’s all for this blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please read the next blog which is “LAB 2: Configuring ESXi Hosts” if you are interested in it. Thank you.
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