Installation Guide VMware ESX Server 2
Installation Guide Installation Guide Version: 2.5.4 Revision: 20061006 Item: ESX-ENG-Q105-083 You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on our Web site at http://www.vmware.com/support/ The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates. If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to: docfeedback@vmware.com © 2006 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Protected by one or more of U.S. Patent Nos.
Contents Preface 7 Welcome to VMware ESX Server 7 How VMware ESX Server Works 8 About This Book 9 Quick Start 9 Intended Audience 9 Document Feedback 9 Conventions and Abbreviations 10 Abbreviations Used in Graphics 10 Technical Support and Education Resources 11 Self-Service Support 11 Online and Telephone Support 11 Support Offerings 11 VMware Education Services 12 Reporting Problems 12 1 System Requirements 13 Server Hardware Requirements 13 Minimum Server Requirements 13 Enhanced Performance Recomme
Installation Guide Virtual Processor 18 Virtual Chip Set 18 Virtual BIOS 18 Virtual Memory 18 Virtual SCSI Devices 19 Virtual Ethernet Cards 19 Virtual Floppy Drives 19 Virtual CD-ROM 19 Legacy Devices 19 Virtual Serial (COM) Ports 19 Virtual Parallel (LPT) Ports 19 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 21 Before You Begin 21 Preparing to Install 22 Installing ESX Server 22 Installation Methods 22 Installing ESX Server on Storage Area Networks (SANs) 23 Installation Boot Screen Options 23 Performing the
Installing and Configuring ESX Server on HP Blade Servers 70 HP Blade Server Hardware Requirements 70 Configuring ESX Server on HP Proliant BL p-class Blade Servers 70 Local SCSI 70 SAN Storage 71 Fibre Channel Connectivity 71 VMotion 71 Core Dump Partition 71 Swap File 71 Installing ESX Server on HP Blade Servers 72 Post-Installation ESX Server Configuration 72 Best Practices on HP Blade Servers 72 Updating the BIOS if ESX Server is Unable to See HBAs 72 Mounting a USB CD-ROM Device 73 Determining the Flop
Installation Guide Mounting Floppy Drives from the Command Line 85 Mounting Floppy Drives from the VMware Remote Console 85 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Intel BladeCenter 86 Intel Blade Server Hardware Requirements 86 Configuring ESX Server on Intel Blade Servers 86 Local SCSI 86 SAN Storage 87 Typical Intel BladeCenter Storage Configuration 87 VMotion 88 Core Dump Partition 88 Swap File 88 Installing ESX Server on Intel BladeCenter 89 Installing ESX Server on the First Blade from the CD-ROM 89
P Preface This preface describes the contents of the Installation and Upgrade Guide and provides pointers to technical and educational resources.
Installation Guide Ideally suited for corporate IT and service provider data centers, VMware ESX Server allows you to: ! Implement server consolidation. You can consolidate applications and infrastructure services onto fewer highly scalable, highly reliable enterprise-class servers. ! Deliver high availability and provide for disaster recovery. With a stable, uniform platform, you can deliver more services and deploy new solutions faster and more efficiently.
Preface About This Book This manual, ESX Server Installation Guide, describes how to install and upgrade the ESX 2.5 Server and access the server using the VMware Management Interface. Quick Start For the fastest path through this book, refer to the table below. Table P-1. Installation Quick Start Current Installation Installation Read This No previous installation VMware ESX Server 2.5.4 “Installing ESX Server” on page 22 ESX Server 1.5.2 or ESX Server 2.x.x VMware ESX Server 2.5.
Installation Guide Conventions and Abbreviations This manual uses the style conventions listed in Table P-2. Table P-2. Type Conventions Style Purpose Monospace Used for commands, filenames, directories, paths. Monospace bold Apply to indicate user input. Bold Use for these terms: Interface objects, keys, buttons Items of highlighted interest Glossary terms Italic Used for book titles. < name > Angle brackets indicate variable and parameter names.
Preface Technical Support and Education Resources The following sections describe the technical support resources available to you: ! “Self-Service Support” on page 11 ! “Online and Telephone Support” on page 11 ! “Support Offerings” on page 11 ! “VMware Education Services” on page 12 Self-Service Support Use the VMware Technology Network for self-help tools and technical information: ! Product Information – http://www.vmware.com/products/ ! Technology Information – http://www.vmware.
Installation Guide VMware Education Services VMware courses offer extensive hands-on labs, case study examples, and course materials designed to be used as on-the-job reference tools. For more information about VMware Education Services, go to http://mylearn1.vmware.com/mgrreg/index.cfm. Reporting Problems These guidelines describe the information you may be asked to provide when you report problems. Be sure to register your serial number.
1 System Requirements 1 The following sections list the requirements for running ESX Server.
Installation Guide NOTE ! 512MB RAM minimum ! Two or more Ethernet controllers. Supported controllers include: ! Broadcom® NetXtreme 570x and 571x Gigabit controllers ! Intel PRO/100 adapters ! Intel PRO/1000 adapters ! 3Com® 9xx based adapters ! LSI SAS adapters For best performance and security, use separate Ethernet controllers for the service console and the virtual machines. ! A SCSI adapter, Fibre Channel adapter, or internal RAID controller.
Chapter 1 System Requirements Enhanced Performance Recommendations ! A second disk controller with one or more drives dedicated to the virtual machines ! Sufficient RAM for each virtual machine and the service console ! Dedicated Ethernet cards for network-sensitive virtual machines The lists above outline a basic configuration. In practice, you may use multiple physical disks, which may be SCSI disks, Fibre Channel LUNs, or RAID LUNs.
Installation Guide VMware File System (VMFS) ! 128 VMFS volumes per ESX Server system ! Maximum physical extents per VMFS volume ! VMFS-2 volumes: 32 physical extents ! VMFS-1 volumes: 1 physical extent ! 2TB per physical extent ! Maximum size per VMFS volume ! VMFS-2 volumes: approximately 64TB with a maximum of 2TB per each physical extent ! VMFS-1 volumes: approximately 2TB CPU ! 16 physical processors per system ! 80 virtual CPUs in all virtual machines per ESX Server system Memory !
Chapter 1 System Requirements Remote Management Workstation Requirements The remote workstation is a Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP, or Linux system from which you launch the ESX Server management tools. As an ESX Server administrator, you have two tools to help you set up and maintain an ESX Server system: ! The VMware Management Interface – a graphical interface that uses a Web browser. ! The VMware Remote Console – a stand-alone application that uses a command-line interface.
Installation Guide Supported Guest Operating Systems For information regarding which guest operating systems are currently supported in ESX Server 2.5, please refer to the Guest Operating System Installation Guide. Virtual Machine Specifications Each ESX Server machine can host up to 80 virtual CPUs in virtual machines (and up to 200 registered virtual machines) on a single ESX Server, with the following capabilities and specifications.
Chapter 1 System Requirements Virtual SCSI Devices ! Up to 4 virtual SCSI adapters per virtual machine with up to 15 devices per adapter ! 9TB per virtual disk Virtual Ethernet Cards ! NOTE Up to 4 virtual Ethernet adapters per virtual machine Each virtual machine has a total of 5 virtual PCI slots, so the total number of virtual adapters, SCSI plus Ethernet, cannot be greater than 5. Virtual Floppy Drives ! Up to two 1.
Installation Guide 20 VMware, Inc.
2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 2 The following sections describe how to install and configure ESX Server: ! “Before You Begin” on page 21 ! “Installing ESX Server” on page 22 ! “Accepting the Security Certificate from ESX Server” on page 55 ! “Installing Additional Hardware on the Server” on page 61 ! “Upgrading From a Previous Version of ESX Server” on page 63 Before You Begin To install VMware ESX Server, you need: ! The VMware ESX Server software CD, which includes the VMware Servi
Installation Guide ! VMkernel modules, which provide support for high-performance device I/O and allow run-time addition of functionality to the VMkernel (for example, network traffic filters). Preparing to Install Be sure you have the network information you need during installation. You need to know: ! The IP address for the physical server where you are installing ESX Server. ! The host name for the server, including the full domain name for the server, if applicable.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server Installing ESX Server on Storage Area Networks (SANs) ESX Server supports installing and booting from Storage Area Networks (SANs), using either the graphical installer or the text-mode installer. For information about pre-installation and configuration tasks, and known issues with installing and booting from SANs, see the VMware ESX Server SAN Configuration Guide at www.vmware.com/support/pubs/.
Installation Guide 2 Power on the machine with the VMware ESX Server CD in the CD-ROM drive. The ESX Server begins its boot process. 3 Press enter to begin a standard ESX Server installation. To install ESX Server on a Storage Area Network (SAN), enter: bootfromsan 24 VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 4 Press enter. The Welcome screen appears. 5 Click Next. The Installation Type screen appears. VMware, Inc.
Installation Guide The Welcome screen lists three options: 6 ! Install Default – Performs a full installation and destroys any saved information on the selected partitions. ! Install Custom – Performs a full installation and allows you to select configuration options for your keyboard and mouse. ! Upgrade Existing System – Upgrades an existing installation of ESX Server. To install ESX Server on a new system, click Install Default or Install Custom.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 9 Click Next. The Mouse Configuration screen appears. 10 Choose the correct mouse type for your system. If the connector your mouse plugs into is round, your mouse is a PS/2 or a Bus mouse; if rectangular, it is a serial mouse. If you cannot find an exact match, choose a mouse type that is compatible with yours. Otherwise, choose the appropriate generic mouse type.
Installation Guide 28 11 Click Next. The End User License Agreement screen appears. 12 Read through the end user license agreement and select I accept the terms in the license agreement. VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server NOTE 13 Click Next. The VMware ESX Serial Numbers screen appears. 14 Enter the ESX Server serial number in the VMware ESX Server field. Entering the serial number is not required for completing the installation. You may enter it later. However, you will not be able to start virtual machines in your ESX Server.
Installation Guide 17 Configure the service console. This includes reserved memory, SCSI storage controller, Ethernet controllers, and fibre channel devices. ! NOTE 30 Reserved Memory – Default amount of memory reserved for the service console, 192MB, is sufficient for managing up to eight virtual CPUs concurrently. Change this to 272MB for up to 16 virtual CPUs, 384MB for up to 32 virtual CPUs or 512MB for more than 32 virtual CPUs. Choose 800MB for the maximum number of virtual CPUs.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server ! SCSI Storage Controller – Allocate storage adapters to be used by the service console and virtual machines on the server. The service console and the virtual machines must have access to at least one device. A SCSI or RAID adapter should be shared to use that adapter or array for both the service console and virtual machines. When you are allocating SCSI or RAID devices, the unit of device allocation is a PCI card device.
Installation Guide 18 Click Next. The Disk Partitioning Setup screen appears. 19 Select the type of disk partition: Manual Partitioning or Automatic Partitioning. If you choose Automatic Partitioning, specify the automatic partitioning options: 32 ! Remove all partitions – Removes all partitions on the system. ! Remove all partitions except VMFS – Removes all partitions on the system but keeps the VMFS partition. This is where your virtual machines are stored.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 20 VMware, Inc. Click Next. If you selected Automatic Partitioning, the Partitioning screen lists the partitions ESX Server created.
Installation Guide If you selected manual partitioning, the Disk Setup screen lists only the drive and the amount of available space. Whether you automatically or manually create partitions, the ESX Server system requires a minimum of three partitions, as described below. You can use the free space to divide a fourth partition into a number of logical partitions. 21 To create a partition, click New. 22 To modify a partition, use the directional arrows to select the partition to edit and click Edit.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 23 Create the first partition. Set the mount point of /boot, the type to ext3 and the size to 50MB. 24 Create the second partition. Set no mount point, the type to swap and the size to twice the memory assigned to the service console. VMware, Inc.
Installation Guide The default amount of memory assigned to the service console is 192MB, which is appropriate for managing up to eight virtual machines. If you plan to use that amount of memory for the service console, set the size of the swap partition to 384MB.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 27 Click Next on the partitioning screen to continue. The Network Configuration screen appears. 28 Enter the network parameters. The options are: ! DHCP – Allows this process to determine network settings each time the ESX Server system boots. NOTE Selecting this option requires that your DNS server is capable of mapping the service console’s host name to the dynamically generated IP address.
Installation Guide 38 29 Click Next. The Time Zone Selection screen appears. 30 Select your time zone. VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 31 Click Next. The Account Configuration screen appears. 32 Specify your root password. Root is the user name for the administrator. Users with administrator privileges log in with this name when using the VMware Management Interface or the service console. 33 To add a user account, click Add. The Add User dialog box appears. 34 Add at least one user.
Installation Guide 40 35 Click OK. The User Account Setup screen appears. From the User Account Setup screen you can add, delete, or edit user accounts. 36 Verify the user account. 37 Click Next. The About to Install screen appears and displays the location of the installation log file. 38 Click Next. The installer formats the disk and starts installing the packages. VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server After the packages are installed, the Congratulations, ESX Server Installation Complete screen appears. 39 Click Next to reboot from the final screen. Performing the Installation Using the Text Mode Installer This section describes how to install the ESX Server software onto your server machine using the text mode installer. For each step in the installation process, the ESX Server installer attempts to make a best guess estimate for your server.
Installation Guide To install ESX Server 1 Verify the network cable is plugged into the Ethernet adapter that you are using for the service console. The ESX Server installer needs this to properly detect that the machine has a network card. 2 Power on the machine with the VMware ESX Server CD in the CD-ROM drive. The ESX Server begins its boot process. 3 If necessary, enter the BIOS Setup screen and set the CD-ROM as the first boot device.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 5 Press Enter to continue. The Welcome screen appears. 6 If necessary, acknowledge any ESX Server device messages. Click OK.
Installation Guide The Installation Type screen lists three choices: 7 ! Default – Performs a full installation and destroys any previously saved information on the selected partitions. ! Custom – Performs a full installation and allows you to select configuration options for your keyboard and mouse. ! Upgrade Existing System – Upgrades an existing installation of ESX Server. An upgrade preserves existing ESX Server system data. To install ESX Server on a new system, select Default or Custom.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 10 Click OK. The Mouse Selection screen appears. 11 Choose the correct mouse type for your system. NOTE In ESX Server, the graphical environment (X Window System) is designed to use a three-button mouse. If you have a two-button mouse, select the Emulate 3 Buttons option. This option enables you to use middle mouse button functionality by clicking both mouse buttons at once. 12 Click OK. The End User License Agreement screen appears.
Installation Guide 16 If you have a license for VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server, enter that serial number in the ESX Virtual SMP Serial Number field. This license is required if you want to configure your virtual machines with more than one virtual processor. NOTE Entering the serial number installs VMware Virtual SMP for VMware ESX Server. 17 Click OK. If installing on a Storage Area Network (SAN), the Storage Device Allocation screen appears. If not, skip to Step 23.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 21 Click OK. The Service Console Reserved Memory screen appears. 22 Select the default amount of memory to be reserved for the service console. The default amount of memory assigned to the service console is 192MB, which is appropriate for managing up to eight virtual machines.
Installation Guide 24 Define how to partition your disk(s). The Disk Partitioning screen lists two choices for the type of disk partition: ! Manual – Manually create each partition. Be sure to delete any existing partitions. ! Automatic – Installer estimates and creates partitions on your disk. You can edit these selections. Automatic partitioning allows you to have some control concerning what data (if any) is removed from your system.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server If you selected automatic partitions, the Partitioning screen lists the partitions ESX Server created. 28 Verify or define the partitions, as appropriate. If you selected manual partitions, the Partitioning screen lists only the drive and the amount of available space. Whether you automatically or manually create partitions, the ESX Server system requires a minimum of three partitions, as described below.
Installation Guide 30 Create the first partition. Set the mount point of /boot, the type to ext3 and the size to 50MB. 31 Create the second partition. Set no mount point, the type to swap and the size to twice the memory assigned to the service console. You assign memory to the service console in a later step. The default amount, 192MB, is appropriate for managing up to eight virtual machines. If you plan to use that amount of memory for the service console, set the size of the swap partition to 384MB.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server The amount of memory to be reserved for the service console increases to 272MB for 16 virtual machines, 384MB for 32 virtual machines, 512MB for more than 32 virtual machines, and 800MB for the maximum number of virtual machines, so you must adjust the size of the swap partition to 544MB, 768MB, 1024MB, or 1600MB, respectively. To run supported applications in the service console, increase the amount of memory reserved for the service console.
Installation Guide 34 Click OK on the partitioning screen. The Network Configuration screen appears. Enter the information for networking. Specify the following: ! NOTE ! Enter the host name in the Hostname field. Include the full domain name if you are running with domains. Use bootp/dhcp – Press the space bar to check this box. An asterisk is placed in the box. Using bootp/dhcp allows this process to determine network settings each time the ESX Server system boots.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 35 Click OK. The Time Zone selection screen appears. 36 Select your time zone. NOTE Type U to move quickly to the US time zones or E to move quickly to the European time zones. 37 Click OK. The Root Password screen appears. 38 Specify your root password. Root is the user name for the administrator. Users with administrator privileges log in with this name when using the VMware Management Interface or the service console. 39 VMware, Inc. Click OK.
Installation Guide 40 Add at least one user. You need accounts for all users who need to log in to the VMware Management interface to create or run virtual machines. To add users later, use the Users and Groups feature through the VMware Management Interface. 41 Click OK. The User Account Setup screen appears. From the User Account Setup screen you can add, delete or edit user accounts. 42 Verify the user account. 54 VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 43 Click OK. The Installation to Begin screen appears and displays the location of the installation log file. 44 Click OK. The installer formats the disk and starts installing the packages. After the packages are installed, the Complete screen appears. 45 Click OK to reboot from this screen. CAUTION When you reboot, the system boots into a uniprocessor Linux kernel with legacy mode interrupts.
Installation Guide To accept the certificate, follow the steps in the appropriate section below or take the equivalent steps for your browser version. ! “Accepting the Certificate for an Internet Explorer 6.0 Browser” on page 56 ! “Accepting the Certificate for a Netscape Navigator 7.0 Browser” on page 59 ! “Accepting the Certificate for a Mozilla 1.x Browser” on page 60 Accepting the Certificate for an Internet Explorer 6.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 2 To accept the certificate for this session only, click Yes. The Certificate Login screen appears. 3 Click Install Certificate to launch a wizard that guides you through the process of installing the security certificate. VMware, Inc.
Installation Guide 4 Click Next to start the wizard. The Certificate Store screen appears. 5 Select Place all certificates in the following store and click Browse. 6 Select the Show physical stores check box, and expand the Trusted Root Certification Authorities folder. 7 Select the Local Computer folder and click OK. 8 Click Next and click Finish. A message appears, stating that the import was successful.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server Accepting the Certificate for a Netscape Navigator 7.0 Browser When you connect to the management interface with a Netscape browser, a dialog box appears, indicating the certificate is from an unknown authority. Figure 2-1.
Installation Guide 4 Click OK to continue. Depending upon your browser settings, a security warning message may appear. 5 Click OK. The management interface login page appears. Accepting the Certificate for a Mozilla 1.x Browser When you connect to the management interface with a Mozilla browser, a dialog box appears, indicating the certificate is from an unknown authority. Figure 2-2.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 3 Click Continue. A dialog box appears, warning of a domain name mismatch. 4 You can ignore this message. Click OK to continue. Depending upon your browser settings, a security warning message may appear. 5 Click OK. The management interface login page appears.
Installation Guide The Startup Profile page appears. 62 3 Assign the new devices to the virtual machines by selecting Virtual Machines in the Dedicated To list for each device. 4 Click OK to save your changes. 5 Reboot the server for the changes to take effect. VMware, Inc.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server Installing Hardware for Use by the Service Console After you install additional hardware on your system, simply booting or rebooting the machine does not make the service console aware of the newly installed hardware. To make the service console aware of newly installed hardware, log in to the service console as root, then do one of the following: ! Run the command kudzu at a command prompt. ! Manually edit the file /etc/modules.conf.
Installation Guide If the virtual machine is suspended, resume it in the earlier release, shut down the guest operating system, then power off the virtual machine. NOTE If you attempt to resume a virtual machine that was suspended under a different VMware product or a different version of ESX Server, a message gives you the choice of discarding or keeping the file that stores the suspended state. To recover the suspended state, click Keep, and resume the virtual machine under the correct VMware product.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server Upgrading from ESX Server 1.5.2 or ESX Server 2.x.x To upgrade from ESX Server 1.5.x or 2.x.x to ESX Server 2.5, use the installation CD-ROM. NOTE During an ESX Server upgrade, network options cannot be changed. CAUTION Upgrading directly from ESX Server 1.0 or 1.1 to ESX Server 2.5 is not supported. 1 Insert the installation CD into the server’s CD-ROM drive. 2 Start the computer. The system begins booting from the CD-ROM.
Installation Guide Installing Additional Drivers from the VMware Driver Disk VMware provides a driver disk for a device that is not handled by drivers in this release of ESX Server. Use driver disks to upgrade the drivers on an existing system or install new drivers on to an existing system. To install additional device drivers from a VMware provided disk: 1 Insert the installation CD into the server’s CD-ROM drive. 2 Start the computer. The system begins booting from the CD-ROM.
Chapter 2 Installing and Configuring ESX Server 5 If you have a driver disk from VMware, put the driver disk into the floppy drive and choose OK. 6 If you are prompted for additional disks, select Continue. 7 After the driver disks are installed, select Continue to proceed with the installation. Verifying Your Device Driver Mappings During the upgrade, the ESX Server installer renames the /etc/vmware/vmware-device.map.local file to /etc/vmware/vmware-device.map.local.orig.
Installation Guide 68 VMware, Inc.
3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers 3 You can deploy VMware ESX Server 2.5 on a variety of hardware, including blade servers (blades).
Installation Guide Installing and Configuring ESX Server on HP Blade Servers For a list of blade servers supported with ESX Server, see the ESX Server Systems Compatibility Guide at www.vmware.com/products/server/esx_specs.html.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers SAN Storage Fibre Channel SANs are the preferred storage media for ESX Server and VirtualCenter in a blade environment, due to the following advantages: ! SAN storage may be shared among multiple blades (and other systems), thus allowing storage consolidation. Often, this is a much more efficient use of storage resources than dedicated, per-system, RAID-protected storage.
Installation Guide Provide enough physical memory to prevent virtual machine swapping from being a significant performance issue. Depending on the number of blades and your swap usage, you may choose to allocate a dedicated LUN for swap files. Multiple swap files from multiple ESX servers can reside on this dedicated LUN. Do not store any other kind of file (virtual machine.vmdk files, checkpoint files, and so on) on this LUN. Use a unique name for each blade server swap file, such as, -1.vswp.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Mounting a USB CD-ROM Device HP blades use a USB-based CD-ROM drive. VMware ESX Server automatically detects this drive and installs the needed drivers.
Installation Guide To configure bond failover 1 Log into the VMware Management Interface as root. 2 Click the Options tab, then click Advanced Settings. 3 Find the Net.Zerospeedlinkdown option and set it to 1. Installing and Configuring ESX Server on IBM BladeCenter For a list of blade servers supported with ESX Server 2.5, see the ESX Server Systems Compatibility Guide at www.vmware.com/support/resources/esx_resources.html.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Local SCSI Some blade systems have SCSI peripherals that can be attached to each CPU, and take up to two SCSI drives. In typical use, these SCSI drives are placed into a RAID1 (mirrored) configuration for redundancy. On an IBM blade with SCSI peripherals, the SCSI peripheral takes up one of the blade slots, thus reducing the maximum blade density by half.
Installation Guide VMotion For you to use VMotion, all blades in a VirtualCenter farm need access to the same logical unit number (LUN) on a SAN. Consequently, the VMFS volumes that contain the virtual machine virtual disk (.vmdk) files must be on a shared SAN accessible by ESX Server. NOTE VMotion is not supported for virtual machines hosted on local storage. The virtual machine must reside on a shared SAN.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Installing ESX on IBM BladeCenter 1 NOTE You must install ESX Server on the first IBM blade by performing a standard CD-ROM-based installation. Follow the procedure described in “Installing ESX Server” on page 22. You can use the graphical installer with IBM blades only if you are using a USB mouse plugged into a USB port. 2 There are two different procedures for installing ESX Server on subsequent, additional blades in IBM BladeCenter.
Installation Guide Installing ESX Server on Additional Blades Once you install ESX Server on a system, you can quickly deploy or provision more ESX Server systems that share the same configuration or have a similar configuration. You can install ESX Server on additional blades either by using the ESX Server 2.5 CD-ROM (described in the preceding section) or by using a remote network installation procedure (described in the following section).
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Use RDM to boot a pre-configured ESX Server installation image. This installer then loads the necessary files from a file server. Complete the following steps to install ESX Server using RDM: 1 2 Install IBM Director and RDM on a Microsoft Windows 2000 server system.
Installation Guide 5 Add the ESX Server boot disk image to the RDM server. By default, RDM is installed in C:\Program Files\IBM\RDM. We assume this default location in the following steps. If you have installed RDM in a different directory, then change the directories in the following steps, accordingly. NOTE a Open the folder for C:\Program Files\IBM\RDM\repository\environment\. b Create a folder in that directory called esx. c Copy C:\Program Files\IBM\RDM\repository\environment\etc\pxeboot.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers 7 Create an installation task. a In the right “task” column of the IBM Director window, choose Remote Deployment Manager > Custom. b Right click on Custom and create a new task. c In the Advanced tab, there is an editable text box that contains the script that runs the task. Modify the installation task to match the following. ;This is command list for custom task BOOTTYPE !LOADBOOTSTRAP environment/esx/pxeboot.
Installation Guide Using NIC Teaming on IBM Blade Servers IBM blade servers have two physical network interface cards (NICs). NIC teaming (IEEE 802.3ad) is a feature of ESX Server that allows you to create a bonded NIC that spans multiple physical NICs. Each bond acts as a virtual switch that provides multiple uplinks for your use. For more information on bonds and virtual switches, see the ESX Server 2.5 Administration Guide.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers 5 Reboot ESX Server for your changes to take effect unless you are creating a VLAN for the service console. See “Creating a VLAN with NIC Teaming for the Service Console” on page 83. Creating VLANs with NIC Teaming on IBM Blade Servers System administrators use virtual LANs, or VLANs to increase performance and security.
Installation Guide Configuring Bond Failover on IBM Blade Servers Due to how IBM HS20 and HS40 blade servers detect network connection failures, a network adapter bond may not failover when the primary adapter is disconnected from an external switch. ESX Server includes an option to detect network connection failures on these IBM servers. To configure bond failover, you need to set the Net.Zerospeedlinkdown option to a value of 1 on IBM HS20 and HS40 blade servers.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Determining the Floppy Drive on a Blade Server When an IBM blade powers on, the SCSI drivers load first (if SCSI devices are present), followed by the USB drivers (if USB devices are present). Then the Fibre Channel device drivers load, if they are allocated solely to the virtual machines (VMkernel), per our recommendation.
Installation Guide Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Intel BladeCenter For a list of blade servers supported with ESX Server 2.5, see the ESX Server Systems Compatibility Guide at www.vmware.com/products/server/esx_specs.html.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers SAN Storage Fibre Channel SANs are the preferred storage media for ESX Server and VirtualCenter in a blade environment, due to the following advantages: ! This configuration doubles the blade density per blade chassis, compared with local SCSI storage on Intel blades. ! SAN storage may be shared among multiple blades (and other systems), thus allowing storage consolidation.
Installation Guide VMotion For you to use VMotion, all blades in a VirtualCenter farm need access to the same logical unit number (LUN) on a SAN. Consequently, the VMFS volumes that contain the virtual machine virtual disk (.vmdk) files must be on a shared SAN accessible by ESX Server. NOTE VMotion is not supported for virtual machines hosted on local storage. The virtual machine must reside on a shared SAN.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers Installing ESX Server on Intel BladeCenter For a list of blade servers supported with ESX Server, see the ESX Server Systems Compatibility Guide at www.vmware.com/products/server/esx_specs.html. You must install ESX Server on the first Intel blade by performing a standard CD-ROM-based installation. Follow the procedure described in “Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers” on page 69.
Installation Guide Installing ESX Server on Additional Blades Once you install ESX Server on a system, you can quickly deploy or provision more ESX Server systems that share the same configuration, or have a similar configuration. You can install ESX Server on additional blades either by using the ESX Server 2.5 CD-ROM (described in the preceding section) or by using a remote network installation procedure (described in the following section).
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers 3 Create the bond. Using vi or a similar text editor, edit /etc/vmware/hwconfig and add the following two lines to the end of the file, where x is a bond number from 0 to 9. nicteam.vmnic0.team = “bond” nicteam.vmnic1.team = “bond” 4 Use the vmxnet_console module to give network access to the service console. Using vi or a similar text editor, edit /etc/rc.
Installation Guide 3 Configure the physical ports on your external switch (not the switch on BladeCenter) to be trunk ports that support the VLANs IDs that you have chosen. 4 Reboot ESX Server. Creating VLANs with NIC Teaming for Virtual Machines 1 Create a bond between the two NICs as described in “Using NIC Teaming on Intel Blade Servers” on page 90. 2 As root, log into the VMware Management Interface and create VLANs for your virtual machines. Refer to the online help or the ESX Server 2.
Chapter 3 Installing and Configuring ESX Server on Blade Servers To determine the location of the floppy drive, you need to count the number of logical units on SCSI drives, Fibre Channel LUNs, then determine whether or not USB devices are enabled (the CD select and KVM select buttons are selected) when the blade boots. For example, when powering on a blade, you have a single logical SCSI drive and two Fibre Channel LUNs. Therefore, the floppy drive is /dev/sdb.
Installation Guide 94 VMware, Inc.
4 Remote and Scripted Installations 4 The following sections describe how to install ESX Server using remote and scripted installations: ! “Scripting Your Installations” on page 95 ! “Configuring ESX Server for Scripted Installations” on page 96 Scripting Your Installations Once you install ESX Server on a system, you can quickly deploy or provision more ESX Server systems that share the same or have similar configurations. You can set up a script to aid in the installation.
Installation Guide Configuring ESX Server for Scripted Installations To support scripted installations, you need to configure your ESX Server. To set up the server for scripted installations, complete the following steps. 1 As root, connect to the service console on the ESX Server. 2 With the CD-ROM in the ESX Server CD-ROM drive, mount the ESX Server CD-ROM. mount /mnt/cdrom 3 Run the following script. /usr/bin/scriptedinstall-setup.pl Once the script is installed, you are asked to restart Apache.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations In addition, you need access to the ESX Server installation files. The files can be on the ESX Server CD-ROM, which you can leave in the CD-ROM drive of the system on which you originally installed ESX Server, or you can use the CD-ROM to install each new system. In addition, the files can be stored on a separate server and accessed across the network.
Installation Guide ! Click CD-ROM to install from the CD-ROM on the local CD-ROM drive on the new system. ! Choose NFS to perform a network install using The Network File System (NFS) application. In the Remote Server URL entry field, enter the host machine name along with the mount point, like this: : NOTE 98 8 Consult the I/O Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 2.x to determine the driver required by the NIC you will be using for installation.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations 13 Under Root Password, specify the root password. Enter the root password in the Password field. Enter this password a second time in the Again field. Click Next to continue. The next Scripted Install screen appears. VMware, Inc.
Installation Guide 14 Read through the end user license agreement and check I have read and accept the terms in the license agreement. Click Next to continue. If the ESX Server system is going to have a static IP address, the Networking Options page appears. If the ESX Server system is going to use DHCP, skip to Step 17. 15 NOTE 100 Enter the information for networking.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations 16 Enter a name for the virtual switch in the Virtual Switch Name field. Before virtual machines can be configured to access a network, you must create at least one virtual Ethernet switch. Click Next to proceed to the Virtual Switch Options screen. 17 Enter a name for the virtual switch in the Virtual Switch Name field. Before virtual machines can be configured to access a network, you must create at least one virtual Ethernet switch.
Installation Guide 102 20 Assign each network adapter to a virtual switch. Choose a virtual switch from the pull-down menu next to the network adapter. 21 Click Next to continue to the next configuration screen. 22 Enter the ESX Server serial number in the VMware ESX Server field. VMware, Inc.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations If you have a license for VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server, enter that serial number in the VMware Virtual SMP for ESX Server to configure your virtual machines with more than one virtual processor. Entering the serial number installs Vmware Virtual SMP for ESX Server. Allocate memory to the service console and select PCI devices assignments. In the Service Console list, choose the amount of memory reserved for the service console.
Installation Guide Allocate the PCI devices. Specify the following: NOTE 104 ! Enter the Bus, Slot, and Function values using hexadecimal numbers. ! Choose the assignment for each device as Service Console, Virtual Machines or Shared. For more information on allocating PCI devices, refer to the VMware ESX Server Administration Guide. 24 Click Next to continue. The Partition Configuration page appears.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations ! In the Type list, select the type of file system. Choose from vmfs, vmcore, ext3, and swap. Select swap if the partition is a swap partition. ! Check the Grow check box if you want the partition to grow until it fills the disk. VMware recommends you do not make your boot and swap partitions growable. 26 When you are satisfied with your choices, click Next to continue. The Swap File creation screen appears. 27 Specify the following: VMware, Inc.
Installation Guide NOTE 106 If the swap file is set to be activated manually, after you reboot, the swap file is not activated. To activate it manually, you must use vmkfstools. For information on how to use vmfkstools and commands, refer to the VMware ESX Server Administration Guide. 28 Click Create Swap File to create the swap file. The new swap file appears in the Configured Swap Files list. 29 When you are satisfied with your choices, click Next to continue.
Chapter 4 Remote and Scripted Installations 31 NOTE Click Download Floppy Image to create a floppy disk image. ! Save the file as an image with a .img extension. If you are creating more than one floppy image (for example, you are not using DHCP in the initial configuration and you want to specify the host name and IP address for each new ESX Server system), change the settings as appropriate and create a new floppy image with a unique name.
Installation Guide 108 VMware, Inc.
Index Index D K Device driver installing 66 F Knowledge base 11 M Memory Fibre Channel 14 server requirements 14 G R Guest operating system RAID 14 Remote management workstation supported systems 18 system requirements 17 H Hardware S installing on server 61 Hardware requirements 13 Scripted installs 95 I Installation before you begin 21 setup 96 SCSI 14 Security certificate installing 55 Specifications boot screen options 23 ESX Server system maximum 15 Dell blade servers 69 legacy
Installation Guide er 2.0 65 from previous version of ESX Server 63 User groups 11 V VMware community forums 11 110 VMware, Inc.
