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How to Run ESXi Under VMware

ESXi is an infrastructure bare metal virtualization solution designed to run tens or hundreds of operating system on a single physical server. ESXi has very specific hardware requirements that make it difficult to build a dedicated machine to learn or show ESXi. It is possible for you to install ESXi on a VMware workstation virtual machine if you cannot get a dedicated server to test ESXi.

Instructions

    • 1

      Open the VMware workstation.

    • 2

      Go to "File," "New" and then "Virtual Machine."

    • 3

      Select "Custom" in the new window and click "Next."

    • 4

      Select "Workstation 6.5" in "Hardware Compatibility." Click "Next."

    • 5

      Select "I will install the operating system later" and click "Next."

    • 6

      Select "Linux" and then "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 64bit" and click "Next."

    • 7

      Name the virtual machine and select a location on your hard drive to install in on before clicking "Next."

    • 8

      Select the number of processors depending on how many resources you want to allocate to the virtual machine. Click "Next."

    • 9

      Select "Use Bridged Networking." Click "Next."

    • 10

      Select the "LSI Logic (Recommended)" in the "I/O Adapter Types" window. Click "Next."

    • 11

      Select "Create a New Virtual Disk." Click "Next."

    • 12

      Select "SCSI." Click "Next."

    • 13

      Select the size of the hard drive you want to use. Remember that the hard drive will be used by ESXi and all the other operating systems that you will install. Click "Next."

    • 14

      Name the virtual disk and click "Next."

    • 15

      Deselect the "Power on this virtual machine after creation" check box and click on "Customize Hardware."

    • 16

      Select and remove the floppy, USB controller and sound card.

    • 17

      Highlight "CD/DVD (IDE)" and select "Power At Power On." Select "Use ISO Image File" and navigate to the location of the ESXi ISO image or select "Use Physical Drive" and select the CD/DVD player where you have your ESXi DVD.

    • 18

      Highlight "Network Adapter" and select "Replicate Physical Network Connection State."

    • 19

      Highlight "Display" and deselect "Accelerate 3D Graphics."

    • 20

      Highlight "Processors" and select the "Intel-VTx" or "AMD-V" option in the "Preferred Mode" field.

    • 21

      Click "OK" and then "Finish."

    • 22

      Click on the newly created virtual machine and write the path from the "Location" Field. Turn the VMware workstation off.

    • 23

      Use your computer explorer to navigate to the path you wrote down in Step 22. Right-click on "Name of Your VM.vmx" and select "Edit."

    • 24

      Write "monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = TRUE" without the quotes on a new line in the file. Save and close the file. Turn the VMware workstation on. Select the virtual machine you created and click "Power on This Virtual Machine."

Tips & Warnings

  • Running ESXi in VMWare requires a minimum of 2GB of RAM. You will need 4GB of RAM if you want to run ESXi and other VMWare infrastructure appliances such as monitoring and management softwares.

  • ESXi will not run on a VMWare workstation installed on a computer with a processor without Intel VT or AMD-V virtualization technology.

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