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Questions tagged [vmware-esxi]

VMWare ESXi is an installable/embeddable virtualization platform based around the ESXi Hypervisor.

VMWare ESXi is a type 1 hypervisor based virtualization platform that installs on bare hardware (no host OS required) that allows running multiple guest virtual machines simultaneously.

ESXi is available freely with basic single-server functionality, but more advanced functionality requires licensing commercial versions of VMWare vSphere (formerly known as VMWare Infrastructure prior to version 4.0). ESXi lacks the linux-based service console included with VMWare ESX, further reducing install footprint and attack surface.

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Is there a way to clone an existing VM on an ESXi server without having to re-import it?

I have imported a VM into an ESXi server using the VMware "Converter stand alone utility". However, this process is a little tedious. Since I eventually want several copies of this VM (or, to be more accurate, several more-or-less identical…
David Mackintosh
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VMWare ESXi free?

Much is made of the fact that VMWare's ESXi hypervisor is "free" As best I can tell, you can install the hypervisor on a host for "free". Because ESXi does not have a built in management console, you need a program, of some sort, to connect to the…
SvrGuy
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In VMware ESXi 5.x, does it make a difference if I select 2 CPU cores vs. 2 CPU sockets?

Title pretty much says it all. I'm just wondering if this makes a difference in the way VMs will process things and if one method is preferable vs. another.
Windows Ninja
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How is the /altbootbank/ partition used in ESXi?

I'm aware that ESXi maintains two copies of its boot partition, /bootbank and /altbootbank, and that /altbootbank is more or less a backup copy of /bootbank, which is the running copy. What I'm not clear on, and haven't ever seen documented…
Bob Sammers
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Migrating from vSphere 5.5 to another datacenter 6.5

We are planning to migrate the production VMs from one of our datacenters, based on ESXi 5.5 hosts, to a new datacenter with 6.5 environment. Datacenters are located in different places. So our production consists of near 150 VMs. I've set the…
Tackled Archon
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ESXi standalone host cannot power on any virtual machines

I have a standalone VMWare ESXi host on ESXi 5.1. It currently has a handful of VMs powered on, and they are running fine. If I try to power on any other VM - any VM at all - I am receiving the following message: Power On virtual machine:A general…
Mark Henderson
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Does a nested ESXi lab need a trunk port group?

I'm following this guide in setting up a nested ESXi 5 lab on a single box. It has you create 4 ports for each virtual ESXi box, 1 on VMNetwork and 3 on a Trunk port group. It says you need to do this to be able to create VLANs on the virtual ESXi…
Luke
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Default Bios Options for ESXi Virtual Machine

Does anyone know of a way to set the default bios options of a virtual machine in ESX1 (4.1). Every time I create a new VM, I need to go into the bios and set the Num Lock in the bios. I was hoping to make it so that each time I created a VM,…
dotnetgeek
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Enable SSLv3 on ESXi 6.5

does anybody know how to enable SSLv3 for vmauthd on ESXi 6.5 ? The old "vmware-vdiskmanager" application for some reason insists on using that and I cannot use the one from VDDK 6.5, because it requires SSL certificate thumbprint but does not give…
Ondrej
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ESXi can't add new VM to port group once VMKernel NIC attached to group

I'm using ESXi standard (the free version) on a new server. When creating a new VM via the embedded host client UI (the new web client that isn't vSphere web) I cannot add a new VM to a port group once the port group has a VMKernel NIC attached to…
BnMcG
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Can a VM perform better when only two cores instead of four cores are presented to it?

We had a VMWare VM at work with two cores allocated to it that ran a pretty heinous process in IIS. Under load the process was maxing out the CPU usage on both cores, so we asked our system engineers to present the other two cores of the physical…
arcain
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How to list mounted ISO's and unmount them from the command line in VMware ESXi?

I have a VMware ESXi 6 host with several guests running on it. There is a datastore with an ISO file that is in use by one or more of these clients. I am accessing the ESXi host through ssh from linux, so PowerCLI is not an option. Q1: How can I,…
roelvanmeer
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What is the difference between Guest Operating System options in VMware?

during the installation I choose a guest operating system type (Window/Linux/Other + version). What is the difference it makes? The hint: "Identifying the guest operating system here allows the wizard to provide the appropriate defaults for the…
user140518
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Determining ESXi boot partition

What does boostate and updated field mean in boot.cfg? I am trying to figure out the way to determine the bootbank from which ESXi will boot. I was thinking of relying on bootstate = 0 but found that both bootbanks can have bootstate of 0.
user1189899
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How to test VM monitoring in vmware ESXi?

I would really like to test VM monitoring, so if the VM locks up, vmware will restart it. I set the high sensitivity for VM monitoring for one particular virtual machine. I tried to: 1) Turn off vmware tools with /etc/init.d/... 2) Kill the vmware…
John
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