ESXi

Install VMware ESX

Install VMware ESX

The first time you install VMware ESXi might feel a bit daunting. Once you’ve done it at least once, the process is very straightforward.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to install VMware ESX.

Prerequisites

  • ESX install ISO.
  • ESX host time zone set to UTC.
  • A password for the root user.

The Process

  • Boot off the ESX install ISO.
  • Press Enter to confirm you want to move ahead with the ESXi Installer.
  • Press F11 to accept the EULA and move ahead with the ESX installation.
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Minisforum MS-A2 Disable TPM

Minisforum MS-A2 Disable TPM

The Minisforum MS-A2 is an awesome system to use in a home lab. It does have one downside, and that is that even though it has a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 chip, it is a TPM 2.0 CRB (Command-Response buffer) chip, which is likely useful for a lot of use cases. However, it is not compatible with VMware ESXi. VMware ESXi requires a TPM 2.0 FIFO (First-In-First-Out) chip. Fortunately, you can disable the TPM.

In this post, I will show you step-by-step how to disable the TPM on a Minisforum MS-A2.

The Process

  • Get into BIOS by pressing the Del key.
  • Select Setup.
  • Select the Advanced menu.
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vCenter ESXi Config Backup Script

vCenter ESXi Config Backup Script

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 script called vCenter ESXi Config Backup to do everything for me.

You can find the script on my GitHub. https://github.com/thedxt/VMware#vcenter-esxi-config-backup

Prerequisites

How It Works

The vCenter ESXi config backup script connects to VMware vCenter, uses vCenter to connect to each ESXi host, and takes a configuration backup for each host. Because the script uses vCenter, you don’t need to enable SSH on any of the ESXi hosts for the backup to work.

By default, the vCenter ESXi config backup script assumes you are not connected to vCenter and will prompt you to connect to vCenter. You can suppress this behavior if you are already connected to vCenter by setting the optional parameter named connected to the value of Yes.

The script checks to see if the backup folder you defined exists. If the folder does not exist, the script will create it.

Next, the vCenter ESXi config backup script enumerates all of the ESXi hosts in vCenter, it connects to each one and takes a configuration backup. The script outputs the backup into the folder you defined.

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VMware Tools on Windows Server Core

VMware Tools on Windows Server Core

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

  • From ESXi or vCenter mount VMware tools to the VM.
  • Login to the Windows Server Core VM.
  • Change to the D drive (or whichever drive your disk drive is on your install)
  • Enter the following command to being the install .\setup64.exe

Sometimes the VMware tools install screen hides behind the command line window.

  • Click Next
  • Select Typical and click Next.
  • Click Install.
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ESXi Autostart VMs with CLI

ESXi Autostart VMs with CLI

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?

ESXi VMs not starting due to maintenance mode

In this post, I will detail step-by-step how to start the VM auto-start sequence after you’ve exited maintenance mode.

  • Enable SSH by right-clicking on the host and selecting Services > Enable Secure Shell (SSH)
  • SSH into the ESXi host (I’m going to use PuTTY)
  • Run the following command to autostart your VMs vim-cmd hostsvc/autostartmanager/autostart

Now your VMs will start booting up in the autostart order you created.

You can even tell your VMs to shutdown in the reverse order by just running the auto shutdown command vim-cmd hostsvc/autostartmanager/autostop

I tried to find official documentation from VMware about this process but I wasn’t able to find any.

ESXi Config Restore

ESXi Config Restore

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

  • Make a note of your current ESXi build number and the build number of the ESXi config backup file.

If you aren’t sure how, here’s a post I made about how to get your ESXi Build Number without vCenter for your current ESXi and your ESXi config backup file.

Your current ESXi build number and the ESXi build number in the ESXi config backup file must match.

Technically you can still restore with mismatching build numbers however that is a bug and it could cause unexpected behavior and based on VMware’s documentation it would likely not be supported if something goes wrong later on.

You can read more about this bug on my post called ESXi Config Restore Bug.

  • Rename the ESXi config backup file you want to restore to configBundle.tgz
  • Enable SSH by right clicking on the host and selecting Services > Enable Secure Shell (SSH)
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ESXi Config Restore Bug

ESXi Config Restore Bug

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 you can restore an ESXi config backup even if the build numbers don’t match. Which according to the VMware documentation should not be possible.

Even though it is possible to restore an ESXi config backup when the build numbers don’t match, I do not recommend doing this as there has to be a reason why VMware says that the build numbers must match.

In my testing I was able to replicate the bug in ESXi 7 and ESXi 8. I even went all the way back to ESXi 6.7 which had some interesting findings. I didn’t fully test everything in ESXi 6.7 as general support has ended on that version.

Here are my findings and how to replicate the bug.

Generating Backup Files

In order to test everything as much as possible I wanted to have a few ESXi config backup files. This is how I generated the ESXi config backup files that I used in my testing.

  • Fresh install of ESXi 7 Update 2e Build Number 19290878.
  • Took an ESXi config backup from ESXi 7 Update 2e Build Number 19290878.
  • Fresh install of ESXi 7 Update 3d Build Number 19482537.
  • Took an ESXi config backup from ESXi 7 Update 3d Build Number 19482537.
  • Fresh install ESXi 7 Update 3k Build Number 21313628.
  • Took an ESXi config backup from ESXi 7 Update 3k Build Number 21313628.

Restoring from ESXi 7 Update 3d to ESXi 7 Update 3k

Once ESXi 7 Update 3k Build Number 21313628 was installed I tried to restore an ESXi config backup that was taken from ESXi 7 Update 3d Build Number 19482537.

When I do the restore using the vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/restore_config method it works.

No errors when restoring ESXi 7 U3d to an install of ESXi 7 U3k using the restore_config method

Due to the fact that the restore worked I then reinstalled ESXi 7 Update 3k Build Number 21313628 again.

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ESXi Build Number without vCenter

ESXi Build Number without vCenter

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 or physical access, you can get your ESXi build number right from there, you don’t even need to login.

Help Menu

You can also get your ESXi build number right from the Help menu in the Web UI.

  • Login to the Web UI of your ESXi host
  • Click on Help > About

You will now get a screen that show you your ESXi build number.

It should look something like this

In this example we know that my ESXi build number is 19482537.

SSH

  • Enable SSH on your ESXi Host by right clicking on the host and selecting Services > Enable Secure Shell
  • Login to your ESXi host with SSH
  • Enter the following command vmware -v

You will get an output that looks something like this

VMware ESXi 7.0.3 build-19482537

In this example we know that my ESXi build number is 19482537.

ESXi Config Backup File

You can also get your ESXi build number from an ESXi config backup file, which can be helpful if you want to know which ESXi build number was installed when a backup was taken.

To do this we will need something that can open a tgz archive. I like to use 7-Zip.

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ESXi Manual Update

ESXi Manual Update

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.

  • Upload the offline bundle into a datastore (make a note of the full filename)
  • Depending on your setup either migrate the VMs or turn them off
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ESXi Config Backup

ESXi Config Backup

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.

  • Enable SSH by right clicking on the host and selecting Services > Enable Secure Shell
  • Login with SSH
  • Enter the following commands
vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/sync_config
vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config
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