PowerEdge: How to Install and Manage VMware ESXi on PowerEdge Servers

How to Install and Manage VMware ESXi on PowerEdge Servers

 

 

Installing ESXI using custom Dell ISO

Follow these steps to install ESXI using a custom Dell ISO:

• Download the custom Dell ISO

  • Download the latest version of the custom Dell ISO from Broadcom's VMware Download Page

   

  Note: You must log in with a Broadcom username and password in order to download the files.

   

  • If you need an older version, download it from the Dell support site. PowerEdge: How to find the older versions of Dell Customized ISOs for VMware

• Select the correct ISO version

  • On the VMware/Broadcom website, select the Custom ISO's tab.
  • Choose the version of ESXI that you want to download (for example, 7.0, 8.0).
  • Filter the results by searching for "Dell" in the search box.

• Download the Install CD

  • Click the download button for the Install CD to download the ISO file.
  • The Offline Bundle is used for upgrading using command line on the existing host.

 

 

Booting the ISO

Follow these steps to boot the ISO:

• Mount the ISO

  • Mount the ISO on the host using iDRAC Enterprise. You can view more info on this process here: PowerEdge: How to use the Virtual Media Function on iDRAC6, iDRAC7, iDRAC8, and iDRAC9
  • The customer can also burn the ISO to a USB using various tools instead to boot locally if preferred.

• Boot the media

  • Boot the media by selecting the virtual CD from the onetime boot menu, or using the IDRAC next boot option.
  • The loader screen auto-selects booting the media or prompt you to manually press enter to boot.

 

 

Installing ESXI

Follow these steps to install ESXI:

• Load the installer components

  • The Bumblebee screen loads the installer components.
  • Once loaded you see the main welcome screen.

• • Press the F11 key to accept the user license.
  • Select the disk to install the OS onto.

• • Choose to install or upgrade the existing installation.

• • Select the keyboard layout.

 

• • Set the root password

 

• • Verify that the install disk is correct and choose to Install (F11) or go back to make changes (F9)

 

 

• • Once the install process has completed, you are prompted to reboot the server where it then proceeds with a first-time boot of the OS where you can begin configuration such as assigning a Management IP address.

 

 

Installing and Assigning Licenses

You can install the license using the host web client, or if its managed by vCenter the license can be applied using vCenter licenses section.

• Installing the license using the Hosts Web Client:

  • To add the license to a single host, you would log in to the host web client by going to the hosts management IP in a web browser and login.
  • The host login would use the hosts root user and password set during install:

• • Select Manage on the left navigation panel and then select the Licensing Tab
  • Once on the Licensing Page, you click Assign License and put in the license key to assign it to the host.

 

• Installing the license using vCenter:

  • Log in to vCenter using the vCenter SSO login

• • Select the Menu button and choose Administration.

• • Choose the Licenses option under the Licensing section.

• • Click the ADD option in the upper left to start the New License wizard.

• • Enter the license key into the New License dialog box and then click Next.

• • Assign a name to the license (for example, ESXI License).
  • Once back on the Licenses page click the Assets tab and go to the product you want to assign the license to, for this instance it would be the HOSTS tab.
  • Select the host from the list that you plan to assign the license to.
  • Click ASSIGN LICENSE and select the license you want to assign using the name you assigned it when adding the license.

 

 

Understanding License basics

• Downgrade or Upgrade Licenses:

  • VMware licenses are not version locked, they can be upgraded or downgraded as needed.
  • The link below provides additional info on how to downgrade or upgrade a license from the Broadcom account portal.
    • https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/281797/upgrade-and-downgrade-vmware-license-key.html

 

• Combining Licenses:

  • VMware licenses can also be combined to be easier to manage. For example, instead of having multiple ESXI host licenses you can combine them into a single license that can be applied to multiple hosts.
  • The host licenses assign by CPUs, so if you have an ESXi license for a host with two CPUs, you need a license with at least 2 CPUs included. If you purchased three licenses that contained two CPUs each, you can combine them into a single license that covers six CPUs. Each time you assign a license to a host it subtracts the used CPUs from the total in the license.
  • Some licenses are sold only as a single CPU license, a server with two CPUs installed would require a single license that can support two CPUs. You cannot assign a single CPU licenses to a host with more than one CPU as it cannot cover the host on its own. The licenses must be combined into a single license that supports at least 2 CPUs.
  • The below link can help to guide on the process of combining licenses from the online Broadcom account portal:
    • https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/281796/merge-and-split-license-keys-for-vmware.html

 

 

VMware Drivers and Firmware HCL

The Dell VMware drivers are integrated to the Dell Custom ISOs. Sometimes you must upgrade a specific driver and do not want to do a full upgrade of the OS and all the drivers. In this scenario, you can download the drivers manually by finding the version needed from the VMware HCL. Then download the driver from the new Broadcom download page previously mentioned.

• Find the I/O Device Info:

  • You can use a Dell SupportAssist Collection (TSR) pulled from the IDRAC to help verify information such as the installed firmware and Device IDs for the component you want to find drivers for.
  • For assistance exporting a TSR, you can see the guide Export a SupportAssist Collection Using an iDRAC9.
  • For this example, we are wanting to find an updated driver for an X710 Network Adapter installed in the server.
  • With the NIC selected in the TSR you can view the Part Information section that provides you with the PCI IDs and the firmware version we need in order to find the driver.

• • In the image above we can see the FW version installed, 22.5.7, and the device IDs of 8086:1572:8086:0006
  • Next go to the VMware HCL and select I/O Devices from the list under Platform & Compute and then on the left-hand side scroll down to use the drop downs to select the device IDs needed and then scroll back to the top to click View Results.

• • Once the ID's have been set you can scroll back up to the top to click the View Results button.

• • The results are shown below where you can see it found one entry that matched the adapter IDs we are looking for.
  • Select the ESXI version that you need drivers for, in this example its ESXI 7.0U3.  You could of also just filtered for the release version in the search options initially if wanted.

• • Next you see a list of the driver versions and the minimum firmware version required for each.

• • For our current example, we have a firmware version 22.5.7 installed so we can install any driver that lists at least 22.5.7 or older for its requirement.
  Note: If the minimum version required shows firmware newer than that installed the device's firmware must be upgraded before installing the driver.
  • Given the firmware version and drivers requirements we can install the latest driver listed: i40en version 2.5.11.0-1OEM.
  • Next go to Broadcom's VMware download portal, VMware Driver Download Page, and select the Drivers & Tools tab and from the version drop-down select 7.0 for ESXI 7.0:  
  Note: You must log in with a Broadcom username and password in order to download the files
  • In the search field, you can filter using the driver name which for this example would be i40en.

• • Once we find the driver version, click it to open up its download option, and then click the download button:

• • Once it is downloaded, the .zip file contains another .zip file inside it. That inner .zip file must be extracted and then copied over to the host. The command fails to install the double-zipped file.
  • The driver can be installed manually over SSH shell using the command below: 

    esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/bundlefilename.zip

•  

 

 

Installing and connecting to OMSA

• To install OMSA in ESXI:

  • Use the Hosts Web interface or command line (CLI) to install the OMSA VIB. (Similar to the process of install a driver)
  • Install OMSA on a client system or access another system with OMSA already installed.
  • Connect to the ESXI host management IP from OMSA on the client system.
  • For more detailed instructions, you can follow the information provided here:  How to Install OpenManage Server Administrator on VMware to Collect Logs   

 

 

Installing RACADM

• Download the RACADM iDRAC Tools VIB:

  • On the Support Site, provide your service tag or server model and then select the version of ESXI installed.  
  • From the download list, filter for iDRAC Tools and then expand the version needed and click View full driver details.

• Install racadm on the host:

  • Copy the .zip file to a folder on the host such as /tmp
  • SSH into the host and run the install command:

     esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/DellEMC-iDRACTools-Web-ESX70i.VIB-10.2.0.0-4631_A00.zip 

  Note: The -d is used to specify it is a .zip file, if the file was a .vib file we would specify -v instead.
  • Once installed you can run racadm commands. The racadm files are located in the /opt/dell/racadm folder.

 

 

Using the DCUI Console

The Direct Console User Interface (DCUI) is the main console screen that you see when connecting to the system monitor or IDRAC Virtual Console. It allows for basic configuration options, such as setting up the management IP, or changing the root password. You can also trigger a reboot or shutdown from here as well.

• DCUI Configuration Section:
  • Press the F2 key to prompt for login to the DCUI. Once logged in you see the System Configuration options as seen in the image below.

• • From the configuration options you can configure the network settings, or enable options under the Troubleshooting Options section.

 

• Troubleshooting Options: 

• • Enable ESXi Shell - This enables the local ESXI console shell. If enabled you can access the shell console by pressing ALT + F1.

• • Enable SSH - This allows remote access to the shell from SSH connections.
  • Restart Management Agents - This restarts the network services, this can help restore connection if network issues are seen.

 

• Configure the management network:

  • From the main DCUI screen Select Configure Management Network, from here you can choose different options to configure the network.

• • Network Adapters - From here you can select which Network Adapters the Management vSwitch uses for connection.
  • VLAN - Allows you to specify a VLAN for the Management Network to use.
  • IPv4 Configuration - Choose either DHCP or specify static IPv4settings.
  • IPV6 Configuration - Choose either DHCP or specify static IPv6 settings.
  • DNS Configuration - Choose to obtain automatically (DHCP) or provide a static IPv4 address for the DNS Servers.
  • Custom DNS Suffixes - Specify the DNS Domain Name

 

 

Generating VMware support bundles

You can generate a VMware support bundle from either the host directly or from vCenter.

Follow the steps below to generate a support bundle:

 

• Generate the support bundle from the host:

  • Access the hosts login page by entering the hosts management IP address in a web browser.
  • Log in using the hosts root user and password.
  • On the Hosts page, click the actions drop down and select Generate support bundle.

• • Once selected, the bundle begins to generate and download using the web browser's default download location.

• Generate the support bundle from vCenter:

  • From vCenter Inventory on, the left select the host and right-click it to open the options menu and Select Export System Logs.

• • Select the components to collect or leave the default options checked.

• • Click Export Logs.

 

 

Uninstalling/Removing VIB packages

• Follow these steps to uninstall or remove VIB packages:
  • Using grep with the list command filter the list of installed VIB packages to confirm the VIB name
  • SSH into the host and run the command:

# esxcli software vib list | grep -i DEL 
dell-shared-perc8              06.806.92.00-1OEM.700.1.0.15843807     BCM      VMwareCertified   2022-04-08
dcism                          4.3.0.0.2781-DEL.700.0.0.15843807      DEL      VMwareAccepted    2023-01-18
dell-configuration-vib         7.0.0-A00                              DEL      PartnerSupported  2022-04-08
dell-system-update             2.0.0.0.751-DEL.700.0.3                DEL      PartnerSupported  2023-01-18
dellemc-fac-dcui               7.0.3-A00                              DEL      PartnerSupported  2022-04-08
dellemc-osname-idrac           7.0.0-A00                              DEL      PartnerSupported  2022-04-08
openmanage                     10.1.0.0.4634-DEL.700.0.0.15843807     DEL      VMwareAccepted    2024-05-11
racadm                         10.2.0.0.4631-DEL.700.0.0.15843807     DEL      PartnerSupported  2024-05-11
lsuv2-oem-dell-plugin          1.0.0-1vmw.703.0.20.19193900           VMware   VMwareCertified   2022-04-08

• • From the list, you can see the name of the VIB on the left column.
  • Uninstall the VIB package
  • Use the name pulled from the list with the remove command:

esxcli software vib remove -n openmanage

 

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