Add a Virtual machine to the inventory in VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi)
Add a Virtual machine to the inventory in VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi)
To add an exiting virtual machine to an inventory, you need to locate files for this virtual machine in the datastore. In the figure given below, in datastore named ‘datastore1’, there exists a virtual machine of Windows Server 2008 R2 x64.
Point to the vmx file by clicking on it with the mouse, and then right click on this file. A popup is shown as given in figure below. Click on the first option: ‘Add to Inventory’.
Once you click on the option ‘Add to Inventory’, the next screen is displayed where you need to enter a name for this virtual machine. Be careful in naming it, so that you can distinguish this virtual machine from other virutal machines in inventory. Click on Next button.
You need to specify the resource pool name to which you want to add this virtual machine. The resource pools if available/defined are listed in the box. Select the resource pool and click on Next button. If you have not defined any resource pool so far, you can still click on Next button. You may create resource pools and assign virtual machines towards it later from Inventory tab.
The next screen is ‘Ready to Complete’. Click on Finish button. The virtual machine will be added to the inventory.
The following figure shows that the virtual machine is added to the inventory. The name of the virtual machine is same as you have defined in previous steps and is ‘Windows Server 2008 R2 x64’ as shown in figure below.
Removing a virtual machine from the inventory:
If you want to remove this virtual machine from the inventory, try the following steps:
- Right click on the name of the virtual machine in inventory view.
- From the pop up menu, click on the second last option: ‘Remove from inventory’.
- The virtual machine will be removed from inventory, but will remain on the disk inside datastore.
How to install free VMware vSphere 5.5 (ESXi 5.5) license
How to install free ESXi license
- Connect to ESXi 5.5 host using VMware vSphere Client.
- Click on Configuration tab as shown in figure below:
- Clicking on Configuration tab shows configuration options towards Hardware and Software. Hardware options are shown in top table and Software options are shown beneath it. Under Software, the first option is Licensed Features as shown in figure below, click on this option.
- Clicking on Licensed Features, we get information towards license and an Edit button on the right side as shown in the figure below. Click on Edit…
- Click on the button: Enter Key… under the option: Assign a new license key to this host. A new pop up dialog appears, that asks for New license key. Enter the license key you got from VMware while downloading the free vSphere Hypervisor 5.5 and then click on OK button.
- Once the license is applied, the following information is shown:
- Product: VMware vSphere 5 Hypervisor (unlimited cores per CPU)
- Capacity: Unlimited CPUs
- Available: Unlimited CPUs
- Expires: Never
- This is shown in the figure given below:
The above figure shows Expires: Never, it means the evaluation mode is no more as the license has been applied successfully.
VMware vSphere 5.5 Hypervisor (Free ESXi) limitations
VMware vSphere 5.5 Hypervisor (Free ESXi) limitations
VMware vSphere 5.5 hypervisor free version specifications are as follows:
- The limitation of 32GB RAM limit per server/host has been removed from the free hypervisor.
- It supports unlimited number of physical CPUs per host.
- It supports unlimited number of cores per physical CPU.
- It supports maximum 8vCPUs per virtual machine.
- Operating system support: Microsoft OS (18 versions), Linux (54 versions), Mac OS X 10, Solaris, Free BSD etc.
The following figure illustrates that on applying a free license towards VMware vSphere 5.5 Hypervisor, it shows no limit on RAM, as it was shown with former versions (RAM limit: 32GB), and it shows support for unlimited physical CPUs and unlimited cores per CPU.
To check VMware Hardware compability matrix, use the following link:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=hardware
To check VMware Software compability matrix, use the following link:
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=software
For detailed VMware vSphere 5.5 Documentation, use the following link:
https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-pubs.html
VMware ‘I moved it’ ‘I copied it’ meaning
VMware ‘I moved it’ ‘I copied it’ meaning
I have a virtual machine made in VMware Workstation. When I move this virtual machine to a new location, and power on the machine, I get a message : “The virtual machine might have been moved or copied”, as shown in figure below:
VMWare Workstation powering on virtual machine error: “Failed to lock the file”
VMWare Workstation powering on virtual machine error: “Failed to lock the file”
When I powered on a Virtual machine in VMWare Workstation 10, I got this error: “Failed to lock the file”. The problem occurred when the PC was powered off due to some power issues while the Virtual machine was up and running. When I tried to power on the Virtual machine, it gave this error and halted.
The screenshot of the error is as follows:
![]("https://secureservercdn.net/160.153.137.99/87e.713.myftpupload.com/images/images/vsphere5/vm_error01.png)
This is due the fact that the files are in use by some other application and the locks on these files are still active. Then, I checked the files in the filesystem for this virtual machine and found some lock files, like the ones given below:
564d10be-b62c-927b-6434-5c7cecffeb69.vmem.lck
Red Hat Linux.vmdk.lck
Red Hat Linux.vmdk.lck
I deleted these lock files from the Virtual machine filesystem directory and tried to boot the virtual machine.
It worked fine and the virtual machine booted successfully.
Download VMWare vSphere Client 5.5 and 5.5 update 1
Download VMWare vSphere Client 5.5 and 5.5 update 1
VMWare vSphere 5.5 can be adminstered remotely using VMWare vSphere Client 5.5. Once you install vSphere, you can connect to it remotely using vSphere Client.
You can download it directly from the following location:
Download VMWare vSphere Client
| 1. | VMWare vSphere Cient 5.5.0 |
| 2. | VMWare vSphere Client 5.5 Update 1 |
After downloading it, install it. The installation is a series of dialog boxes and is quite straight forward. Once installation is done, to connect to the remote host, enter the hostname or the IP address of the server followed by username and password.
This connects you to the remote vSphere server. Now you can adminster this Server and Virtual machines running on it using this client interface.
“Device eth0 does not seem to be present” error when we move or clone a CentOS 6.3 virtual machine in vSphere
When we move or clone a CentOS 6.3 Virtual machine made in vSphere5.5, and boot the machine once it is moved/cloned, we get the following error:
“Device eth0 does not seem to be present”.
This is due the fact that whenever we move or clone a Virtual machine, vSphere changes the MAC Address and CentOS renames the NIC from eth0 to eth1. CentOS stores the network interface hardware configuration using udev. The file is:
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
Open this file in vi editor and delete the old entry for eth0 and edit the new entry for eth1 to eth0.
Then you need to edit the following file:
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
Record the HWADDR from the 70-persistent-net.rules configuration file and replace it with the existing HWADDR in ifcfg-eth0 configuration file.
Reboot the machine.
Enable SSH access on VMWare ESXi 5.5
Enable SSH access on VMWare ESXi 5.5
SSH access on ESXi 5.5 is disabled by default. To enable SSH access, press F2 key for System Customization, the following screen is displayed. Click on Troubleshooting options.
In Troubleshooting Mode Options, the first option available is Enable ESXi Shell. ESXi shell is used for some maintenance that can’t be handled with CLI interface. It is disabled by default. We can enable access towards this ESXi shell. Click on Enable ESXi Shell and press Enter.
Enable ESXi Shell option is changed to Disable ESXi Shell option and on the right side of the screen, it is shown that ESXi Shell is Enabled.
Next option available is Enable SSH. SSH is disabled by Default and it is shown in the right side of the screen. Select Enable SSH option and press Enter.
SSH is now enabled and the status is shown on the right side of the screen. SSH default port is 22. If we need to define a custom port, then we need to edit sshd_config file and set Port parameter with a value other than 22.
Restart Management Agents will disconnect all current remote sessions. Select this option and press Enter.
A confirmation dialog is shown to confirm restarting managment agent. It displays a warning that Restarting the management agents will disconnect all remote management software. This will affect all running services. Collection of extra troubleshooting information can take a noticeable amount of time. This is followed by an option to Collect extra troubleshooting information. Check this box. if we need this extra information. Press F11 to confirm.
After pressing F11, it restarts the management agents and the status is shown as Done as shown in figure below.
How to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.5
How to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.5
vSphere Hypervisor 5.5 is available for download. It can be downloaded from:
| https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere_hypervisor_esxi/5_5 |
After you have downloaded the hypervisor, follow the instructions give below to install it.
# Burn the downloaded file in a CD/DVD.
# Insert the CD and change bios settings towards boot from CD/DVD.
# Power on the machine and boot from CD/DVD. The following screen is shown:
Select the first option: ESXi-5.5.0-20130302001-standard installer, if you are installing it from the CD/DVD, and if it has already been installed and CD/DVD is still in, then you need to select second option: Boot from local disk.
Since we are installing it for the first time, select the first option (default selected) and press enter key to continue. The following screen is shown.
Once the installer is loaded, the following screen is displayed. It shows information about ESXi release – VMware ESXi 5.5.0 (VMKernel Release Build 1623387), Processors and Memory information.
The progress bar indicates the progress until it is loaded completely. The following figure is another snapshot that shows its progress.
The following screen displays a confirmation that the systems shown in VMware’s Compatibility guide are the one’s that are supported by ESXi. The compatibility for hardware and software can be checked before its installation. The link is: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility
Press Enter to continue. It will then start scanning for available devices as shown in figure below.
Once available devices are scanned, It shows the next screen for Disk selection. This server contains a local hard disk attached to it of 250GB. It is shown here under Storage Device, click on Enter to continue installing it on this device.
The next screen shows the options available to select keyboard layout. Click on US Default or the appropriate regional keyboard from the given list and press Enter to continue.
Next, it asks for root user password. Enter a root password with combination of alphabets, numbers and special characters and must be seven characters long.
Once you enter the password and re-enter to confirm the password, you will get a message beneath it- Passwords match. Press Enter to continue.
It displays a message : Scanning system… and will take a few seconds, and once scanning is done, it shows the next screen to confirm install.
The Confirm Install screen shows that the installer is configured on the shown Disk and gives a warning that the disk will be repartitioned. To confirm the installation, press F11 key.
It starts the installation and its progress can be seen using the progress bar as shown below.
Another screenshot to show the installation progress, when it reached 65%.
Once the installation is done, it shows the following screen, Installation Complete. In the description it specifies that this installation is a trial/evaluation mode for 60 days. You need to register it for full version of this product. When you download the ISO image from the link given above, it already provides you with a free license key, that should be used to register it. You don’t have to wait for 60 days to register it. The moment, you install it, you will get a license key for registering it.
Remove the CD/DVD from the drive and reboot.
It shows the following screen: Rebooting Server.
When the server starts booting from the disk, you will see the following screen. It shows Loading VMware ESXi screen. At the bottom left you will see <Enter: Boot> option, it means, press Enter key to boot the server. Another message below it is: Automatic boot in n seconds… , which means that the server will boot automatically after n seconds, if you don’t press Enter key.
On the bottom right corner, you will see two key-combinations. SHIFT+O and SHIFT+R. SHIFT+O is used to edit the boot options and SHIFT+R is used to enter in Recovery mode. Press enter to continue.
The server starts booting and the following screen is shown:
Another screenshot is shown below to show its progress.
Once the server is up, press F2 function key, it authenticates by shown the login screen as shown below:
Enter login name as root and password that you have specified during installation and press Enter key to continue. The following screen is shown:
You need to configure the network first. Click on Configure Management Network option and the following screen is shown.
Click on IP configuration, when you get the option to chose between DHCP and Static IP address. Select: Set static IP address and network configuration and give the IP Address, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway. If you don’t have any, you need to consult your Network Administrator.
Select IPv6 option and the following screen is shown. You may select or de-select IPv6 depending on what network settings are available, you may need to contact your Network Administrator for the same. If you want to disable IPv6, uncheck the option: Enable IPv6 as shown below.
Under DNS configuration, set the DNS servers and the Hostname for your server. The Primary DNS server, Alternate DNS server and Hostname may be given as shown in the figure below.
To specify any custom DNS suffixes, you may enter them here as shown below:
To save the changes, press Y to apply changes and restart management network.
Once you are done, the server will be on the given network and you can start using it. To access it, you need VMware Infrastructure Client that can be downloaded from the following link:
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?productId=352&downloadGroup=ESXI550
