VMware ESXi 6.0 Installation Step By Step Guide

VMware ESXi 6.0 installation  step by step guide.

Before going to start VMware ESXi installation, we have to know what is ESX = “Elastic Sky X” which ESX is run on bare metal (without OS installation) we can directly install ESX on Hardware. Before going to install the VMware ESXi 6.0 server, you have to make sure your hardware necessary system requirements.

Hardware Requirements

1. 64Bit (x86) processor with VT-x or AMD-V (Enabled in the BIOS level).
2. Dual core processor.
3. Minimum 4GB of RAM(Only for Basic installation).
4. 10GB space of local storage (Only for Installation) For Creating Virtual machine you have to add more space as required.
5. NX/XD bit must be enabled fro the CPU in the BIOS.

Step 1: Downloading vSphere Hypervisor 

Open an  internet browser window and type www.vmware.com →Click Downloads→Select Vmware vSphere hypervisor ESXi 6.0→ Click License and Download (TAB) and login OR Create an account for VMware ESXi 6.0 ISO Image download with license version.

You will receive an Activation link from VMware. Open you email and click on that link to activate VMware account.

The following page will be displayed when you have successfully logged into the VMware download center.

• Click the download link for VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.0 – Binaries ESXi ISO Image to install ESXi 6.0 and download the VMware vSphere Client 6.0 also.
• The VMware vSphere Client 6.0 software is the client software that allows us to connect and manage the ESXi 6.0 server.
• You can Use the Download Manager or Manually Download button.

Step 2: Installing VMware vSphere hypervisior 6.0 (ESXi 6.0)

Burn  the downloaded ISO Image to CD. You can attach the virtual CD-ROM drive in server to the VMware-Hypervisior-ISO Image, If you have an option to attach using iDRAC or Console access, In that case no need to write the ISO to CD / DVD

Attach the CD / DVD / ISO image to physical machine and power on the server

Change boot option if required to first boot device as CD-ROM

Boot  from CD-ROM  and you will see below shown screen

The default option is to boot ESXi 6.0 Standard Installer then click Enter, Any key to pause the boot process.

ISO image is loading setup.

In ‘Welcome to the VMware ESXi 6.0 installation’ screen Hit Enter to Continue.

Press F11 to Accept Terms and Conditions

• ESXi can be installed on a SD card or USB flash drive attached to the computer, local SATA, local RAID Array, or FC (Fibre Channel) or iSCSI LUN.
• All these are supported options. As the footprint for ESXi is very small only 1GB is required for the ESXi OS installation.
• When prompted select a disk to install ESXi on, in the following example, we have two disks connected to this computer, a single 1GB disk, and a 120GB disk.
• Here we are going to use the small disk for the OS. The larger 120GB disk will be used later as storage of virtual machines (VMs).

Select the disk which one you would like to install. Enter to continue the installation.

Select Keyboard language and hit  Enter to continue Installation.

Set Root user password.

Hit F11 to confirm the ESXi installation. Confirm the Installation on the selected disk and press F11 (Install) after this step.
All data will be erased, as the disk will be re partitioned.

After installation process completes 100% , it will prompt to restart server

Installation of ESxi 6.0 is Completed successfully. Now we will see how to assign static IP address to access the VMware vSphere from vSphere client

Assigning IP address to Vmware vSphere ESXi 6.0 from console

Vmware console will look exact like the above screen, If you would like to edit configuration then press F2 key

It will ask for the root password (Note:  If you did not have root credentials then you can’t modify anything from console)

As shown in above screen you can see lot of options

• Here you can Change User password.
• configure / Assign IP Address and DNS IP Address
• Change Host name
• Configure Keyboard Options such as Language settings
• Viewing the logs for any error
• Troubleshooting options
• You can also reset entire host configuration.

Next We will see how to change IP address of ESXi host

Select ‘Configure Management Network’ Hit Enter

Select Network Adapters and Hit Enter

Provide VLAN ID and Hit Enter

Provide IP address for VMware vSphere Management, Gateway and Subnet Mask Hit Enter.

If you would like to disable IPv6 then select disable IPv6 by pressing space bar.

Add DNS configuration to resolve the Host Name from other hosts

Enter the DNS address and Hit Enter

In this ‘Configure Management Network’ screen, press  ‘Escape’ button  to exit and accept changes.  Restart the machine.

To Access this vSphere to create and manage Virtual Machines, Download and Install VMware vSphere client.

That’s about Installation and Configuration of VMware ESXi 6.0.

Thank you for reading. Please do comment your feedback.