When using VMware vCenter, you may only occasionally need a configuration backup of each VMware ESXi host. However, there are some situations where having a config backup of each ESXi host is nice to have. I didn’t want to back up each ESXi host manually, as it doesn’t scale well. Instead, I created a PowerShell…
I’m a fan of using Microsoft Windows Server Core for as many things as possible when it makes sense. In this post, I’ll cover step-by-step how to install VMware Tools on Windows Server Core via the GUI and PowerShell. The GUI Way Sometimes the VMware tools install screen hides behind the command line window.
Maintenance mode is great however, when you have a single ESXi host and you have perfected the perfect VM startup order and you have to place your host into maintenance mode how do you start your VMs in the same order without having to manually do it? In this post, I will detail step-by-step how…
Having a backup is great, but it only helps if you know how to restore it. Previously I showed you how to take an ESXi Config Backup. Now let me show you the process to restore that ESXi config backup. The Process If you aren’t sure how, here’s a post I made about how to…
While I was looking into various ways to restore an ESXi config backup I came across a bug. If you read VMware’s documentation about how to restore an ESXi config backup (you can find that here) you will see that it is full of references saying the build numbers must match. The bug is that…
Knowing your ESXi Build Number can be very useful. It’s really easy to do with vCenter. Without vCenter it’s not as straight forward. Here are a few ways to get your build number when you don’t have vCenter. Console If you have access to the console of the ESXi host via IPMI or iLO or iDRAC…
You can upgrade your ESXi very easily with vCenter but if you don’t have that well then here is how you can do it manually. With VMware the depot files contain the VIBs and image profiles (basically everything you need). You can read more about it here.
Backups are a good thing to have. While it can be super quick and easy to rebuild your ESXi config sometimes that is not always the case. It’s a good idea to have a backup just in case. Here’s how to do it.
There are a few ways to convert a system either P2V (Physical to Virtual) or V2V (Hyper V to VMware). This will show you how to convert a system using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client. Before you start you should check a few things to make the whole process streamlined. Check that the system is…
Here is how to change the host name in ESXi (specifically ESXi 7) Click on Networking Click on TCP/IP stacks Click on the Default TCP/IP stack
