Introduction
I am bringing you with the step by step installation and configuration of VMware vSphere ESXi 6 in 14 easy steps.
So the first question which comes in your mind is what are the requirements to install ESXi.
- A system/server (host) in which VT is enabled, VT-X means Virtualization Technology which is necessary to host hypervisor. (Hypervisor is a term used for all virtualization enablers like VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix, RHEV, etc). Some systems come with VT enabled and for few, you need to enable it from BIOS.
- Minimum RAM recommended for VMware ESXI 6 installation is 4GB RAM and VMware ready CPU’s which you can also find in the VMware Hardware Compatibility List.
- And an ESXi 6 ISO or CD/DVD.
Here for the installation in my lab, I have used a high-end DELL workstation which is VT enabled and installed VMware workstation and created a VM with 4 GB RAM and 2 x Intel Xeon processor of 3.00 GHz.
Let’s start the action and insert the CD or mount ISO image on your Server (host) on which you are going to install VMware ESXi 6 hypervisor.
- Power on the server with CD inserted and make sure you have selected CD/DVD as your first boot device and you should see the following screen,
Keep the cursor as it is selected on ESXi 6.0 standard installer to install ESXi and hit enter or if you don’t hit any key then within 5 seconds it will automatically boot into ESXi 6 setup.
- Once it boots to ESXi setup you should be able to see the following screen,
- Once setup gets totally loaded you will get a screen asking whether to continue or cancel the setup and as we want to install, we will hit enter to continue the setup.
- Once you hit enter to continue it will ask to accept the licensing agreement, click F11 to accept, and continue.
- After hitting F11, you will get a screen asking to select the keyboard layout to be used. And depending upon the keyboard layout you want to use select it and hit enter. For me, I have selected Keyboard layout as US Default.
- Once you select the keyboard layout of your choice, the next screen is the screen which asks you to enter the root password that you want to set for your ESXi host and then press enter to continue.
- Now it will scan to gather additional information of the server hardware.
- Now it will show you all the disk drive’s connected to your server, select the drive on which you want to install ESXi setup and hit enter or if it’s single drive then you may get a direct screen as below to install by pressing F11.
- Once you click on F11 and installation starts, you will see the following screen,
- Once installation gets completed successfully, you should get a screen like this, for taking reboot after successful installation hit enter.
And once you rebooted the server you should see the beautiful screen of VMware vSphere 6 ESXi.
- Now to assign the IP Address to the server press F2 and it will prompt for username and password, put root credentials which we had set during the ESXi installation and select Configure Management Network and hit enter and you should get the following screen,
- Select IPv4 configuration and hit enter.
- You can make it to set the IP address as DHCP and also you can set it to static IP Address. Here I am setting it to use static IP address, select Static IP Address and enter the IP and hit enter and it will ask to restart management network click yes.
- Go to DNS configuration, enter hostname which you want to set to the server (host), and click ESC key to come out of the configuration page.
Guys enjoy with your new ESXi host 6. So this is how we can install ESXi in just 14 steps. So that’s all for now, I will keep updating on the Virtualization Technologies.
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