Hi guys. In this blog we will be looking into Lab 2 of the VMware vSphere v6.5. The main objective is to configure the ESXi hosts and to complete the lab, I have successfully completed the tasks of the lab in the following way.
Task 1- Examine the options in the DCUI
The DCUI looks like the following image.
In order to examine the options, press F2 and a pop-up window will enter asking to enter the password for the user ‘root’. The password is the same as the one we entered during installation of ESXi in Lab 1. Enter the password.
After logging in, we can see that there are several options in the ‘System Customization’ screen and to complete the first task, we have to click on ‘Configure Password’ where we have to change the password. Once that is done, Task 1 is successfully completed. And now if we need to save changes or request access to the ESXi machine, we need to enter the new password that we have set.
Task 2: Configure Management Network
In this task, i configured the IP address of the ESXi machine and set the network so that ESXi machine can communicate with other machines in the same network.
To do that I clicked on ‘Configure Management Network’ in the “System Customization” screen. Here I can set the Network adaptor, IPv4 address, IPv6 address, DNS configuration, etc. I have changed the settings and set up a static IPv4 address, static DNS server and changed the hostname.
After setting them from automatic to static IP addresses, when you press the ‘Esc’ button, press ‘Y’ to save the changes.
I have also repeated the above steps in the second ESXi machine. To test whether the machine can communicate with the other machines in the network, I clicked on ‘Test Management Network’ and then I entered the IP address to ping them and see if its working or not, and the results were as follow:
I run the test in the EsXI1 machine, and I had successfully established a network connection with the the Windows Server machine. Thats the reason why I was able to ping 10.10.1.1 which is the default gateway for the Server to get Interent connection. Now during the test, it is kind of bug that the ESXi machine cant ping the Windows Server or reolve the new hostname. But it can ping the other ESXi machine in the network whose IP address is 10.10.28.62. The same goes for the ‘EsXI2’ machine.
After the test, I found that the hostname gets resolved and it just shows an error saying ‘Failed’ during testing. Also when I tried to ping from the Windows Server to both the ESXi machines, it was able to successfully ping them.
Since the task did not involve trying to successfully ping other machines in network, I left it as it was. In my opinion I think the reason why the ESXi machines cant ping Windows server is because of the firewall setup which doesn’t allow the ESXi machines to communicate with other machines freely in order to be more secure.
Task 3: Enable SSH
To complete this task, I went to the ‘Troubleshooting Mode Options’ in the ‘System Configuration’.
To enable the SSH, select “Enable SSH” and press ‘Enter’.
And that’s all that we need to do for this task.
Task 4: View System Logs
This task was a simple task too. For this, I went to the ‘VIew System Logs’ in the ‘System Configuration’ window, and pressed ‘Enter’. After that I pressed the number ‘1’ which allowed me to see the System logs.
Task 5: Clean Up for the Next Lab
This task is not applicable for my lab environment. The Lab manual instructs and how to do it but it is only applicable for the machines that are built in that particular environment. In my case, I will be needing these ESXi machines for the coming labs which is why it was not necessary/ compulsory for me to delete these machines to complete this lab.
Personal Opinion
During the completion of this lab, there was no issue following the manual and every tasks were completed successfully. It was easy to complete the lab and useful to know/ learn about the ESXi DCUI. That’s all for today’s blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it and stay tuned for the upcoming blogs related to VMware vCenter v6.5 labs. Thank you.
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