Windows 10: ESXi 6.7 -- very easy to install VM's with the browser

Hi folks

Esxi 6.7 has an easy method with your remote browser to install VM's : ideally 2 computers needed one say your laptop and the other where the Esxi data stores (VM disks etc) and other config runs.

Great thing about Esxi is that it's a tiny OS --you can run even from a small USB device stick --once the OS is loaded the stick can be totally removed. You manage the VM's via a browser from the laptop etc.Firefox works just fine.

You can load the VM from a remote .iso image to install the guest (remember to connect when creating the VM) so you don't need to create CD's / DVD's etc. USB supported on Guests as well. Haven't yet messed around with sound / passthru's yet

Here's installation of Arch Linux proceeding.





I'll run a tutorial on Windows VM's on ESXi later once I've got a bit more experience at this.
Even on BIOS machines you can install EFI versions but to keep it simple I'm doing just basic MBR (BIOS) VM's.

All Free software .

Cheers
jimbo

:)

 

Windows 2012 Licensing on ESXi

In a Windows 2012 standard license we can have only 2 VMs; so in one ESXi server(of any sockets) we can host a maximum of 2 VMs; so in my environment we have 3 esxi hosts in a cluster with each running 2 VMs.



so please let me know how much Windows standard/Datacenter license should I procure.



As per my understanding; i will require 3 datacenter licenses.



We cannot have 3 standard windows license because we can have only 2 VMs per host (3 servers); this is OK in ideal case scenario.



But if we need to move one VM from one ESXi host to another i.e

ESXi 1 having 1 VMs

ESXi 2 having 3 VMs ---> violation of licensing

ESXi 3 having 2 VMs

then it will be a violation of the licensing policies.



Please correct if my understanding is wrong.

 

Running your Browser in a VM?

• Install VMware Player or Virtualbox, VMware being faster in my experience
  
• Create a VM with sufficent RAM HD and all CPU cores
  
• Install Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Debian or some lightweight distro with Xcfe or LXDE
• Install VMware/Virtualbox tools
  
• Almost any distro comes with Firefox
• Install Ublock Origin/Noscript/Ghostery
• Disable cookies with a whitelist/use private browsing.

In my experience, running a browser through a VM can slow down scrolling smoothness, video playback and increase ping delay

 

ESXi 4.0 and Ubuntu LTS VM Raw Drive Mapping/Software Raid

I don't really think of one as more powerful or not, they're just aimed at different situations.

Server: computer -> host OS -> Server -> VMs.

ESXi: computer -> ESXi -> VMs.

If you, for example, wanted to use ICHxR or any other RAID controller not supported under ESXi, you could set up the array, install the host OS, then install VMware Server and create VMs.

But if this way is working for you, then by all means go ESXi. It's "closer" to the hardware, so performance is a little better and there's no issues when rebooting a host OS for updates and whatnot.