This section describes how to install the ESX Server software onto your server machine. After completing the steps listed below, proceed to Using the System Configuration Wizard to Configure Your Server to configure your ESX Server machine.

Note: For each step in the installation process, the ESX Server installer attempts to make a best guess estimate for your server. The best guess choice is highlighted. However, you may modify any of these selections during the installation process.

Note: All actions are executed in the ESX Server installer interface by pressing the Tab, directional arrows and/or the Enter key. In fields, cursor location is indicated by a slight shift in the underscore. In check boxes, the box highlights in a contrasting color.

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.

   

   Note: If you are installing ESX Server on an IBM eServer BladeCenter, a Welcome to VMware ESX Server dialog appears. It contains two buttons, Install and Troubleshoot. Wait at least 10 seconds before making a choice (until all of the necessary USB drivers are loaded), otherwise you may get an error message stating failed to read /modules/module-info.

   Later, when you reboot the system after you finish installing ESX Server, you must manually eject the CD-ROM from its drive. It is not ejected automatically.

3. If necessary, enter the BIOS Setup screen and set the CD-ROM as the first boot device.

   Note: On some HP ProLiant servers, you must also change a setting in the BIOS to ensure that the BIOS correctly populates the PCI IRQ routing entries in the MPS table. On these systems, press F9 during boot to get into system configuration, choose Advanced > MPS Table Mode > Full Table APIC. Save the changes and exit.

4. If necessary, boot from a VMware ESX Server boot floppy.

   If the installation screen does not come up properly, your CD-ROM drive may be having trouble booting from the CD.

   • Create a boot floppy:

     Windows System

   1. Put the ESX Server CD in the CD-ROM drive.
   2. Put a floppy disk in the floppy drive.
   3. Open a DOS command window.
   4. Use the rawrite program to copy the disk image to the floppy disk. If your CD-ROM drive is not d:, substitute the correct drive letter.
      D:\dosutils\rawrite -f d:\images\boot.img -d a

      Linux System

   5. Put the ESX Server CD in the CD-ROM drive.
   6. As root, mount the CD.
      mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
   7. Put a floppy disk in the floppy drive.
   8. Copy the boot image from the CD to the floppy.
      dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1474560 count=1
      • Insert the ESX Server boot floppy disk into the floppy drive and reboot.

        If necessary, change the floppy drive to the first boot device through the BIOS Setup screen. Leave the ESX Server CD in the CD-ROM drive.

5. Select for supplemental drivers.

   

   Specify if you want to install additional device drivers from a VMware provided disk.

   Continue — proceeds with the installation without searching for additional drivers.

   Driver Disk — installs additional drivers from the VMware driver disk. Put the driver disk into the floppy drive then choose this option.

   • Select Continue or Driver Disk.
   • If you selected Driver Disk, the Devices Confirmation screen appears. Select OK.
   • The Welcome screen appears.
6. If necessary, acknowledge any ESX Server device messages. Select OK.

   The installer examines all the hardware to determine if the Ethernet and SCSI devices are compatible with VMware ESX Server.

   Unknown PCI devices — this messages indicates that there are Ethernet or SCSI PCI devices installed on the machine that are not supported by the service console, possibly because they are quite new. Contact VMware with details about the device to determine the current level of support for the device.

   PCI devices unusable by virtual machines — this message indicates that there are Ethernet or SCSI PCI devices installed on the machine that are supported by the service console but cannot be used by virtual machines. These devices may be older, lower-performance devices that are not supported by ESX Server.

7. Select Install.

   

   The Welcome screen lists three choices:

   Install — this option performs a full installation.

   Upgrade — this option upgrades an existing installation of ESX Server.

   Troubleshoot — if you have already attempted an installation and failed, select this option.

   • To install ESX Server on a new system, select Install.
   • To install ESX Server on a system that contains a previous version of ESX Server, select Upgrade, then follow the steps at Upgrading from a Previous Version of ESX Server.
   • If you have tried to install ESX Server and have had problems, select Troubleshoot. The installer asks you to insert a blank floppy disk into the floppy disk drive. Select OK. The installer copies useful information into a troubleshoot.out file that you can send to VMware customer support for help in troubleshooting your installation.

     If you selected Install or Troubleshoot, the Disk Partitioning screen appears.

     Note: If you are installing ESX Server on an IBM eServer BladeCenter, you should wait at least 10 seconds before making your selection; otherwise you may get an error message stating failed to read /modules/module-info.

8. Define how to partition your disk(s).

   

   The Disk Partitioning screen lists two choices:

   Automatic — the installer estimates and creates partitions on your disk. You can edit these automatic selections after they are created.

   Note: If you have disks connected via an Emulex Fibre Channel adapter or a QLogic QLA-2300 Fibre Channel adapter, they may not appear when using Automatic partitioning. However, they are visible during configuration of the server, when you assign disk space for storage of virtual machine files.

   Manual — you manually create each partition. Be sure to delete any existing partitions.

   Make your selection. Select Automatic or Manual, as desired.

9. If you are installing this ESX Server on an unformatted disk, the following message appears. Select Yes or No as appropriate.

   

10. If you selected Automatic partitions, specify how you want the space on your hard disk to be allocated to the service console.

    Note: In these steps, you are setting up partitions for use by the service console. Later, when you are configuring the ESX Server system, you set up VMFS-2 partitions, which is where your virtual machines are stored. For more information, see Configuring the ESX Server System.

    The options appear on the Automatic Partitioning screen.

    

    The hard disk allocation options are:

    • Remove all Linux Partitions on this system
    • Remove all partitions on this system
    • Keep all partitions and use existing fee space

      The hard drive selection options are based on the hard drives detected by the ESX Server installer. The service console is installed on the hard drive selected.

    • Make your partition handling selection.
    • Make your hard drive selection.
    • Select OK to process your selections.
    • If you choose to delete existing partitions, select Yes, to confirm partition deletion.

      

      The Partitioning screen appears.

11. Verify or define the partitions, as appropriate.

    If you selected Automatic partitions, the Partitioning screen lists the partitions ESX Server created.

    

    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. You can use the free space to divide a fourth partition into a number of logical partitions.

    • To create a partition, select New.
    • To modify a partition, select the partition to edit, using the directional arrows. Then select Edit.

      Note: Do not create partitions on any other disks besides the main boot disk.

    • The Add Partition screen is displayed. The screen pre-loads the information of a selected partition, when Edit is selected.

      First partition — set the mount point of /boot, the type to ext3 and the size to 50MB.

      

      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.

      The amount of memory to be reserved for the service console increases to 272MB for 16 virtual machines, 384MB for 32 virtual machines or 512MB for more than 32 virtual machines, so you must adjust the size of the swap partition to 544MB, 768MB or 1024MB, respectively.

      Third partition — set the mount point to /, the type to ext3 and the size to about 1800MB.

      

      The third partition holds your root file system and most of the Linux and service console files. The service console should be installed on your first IDE disk (hda), if you have one; otherwise, use your first SCSI disk (sda)

    • Select OK on the Add/Edit Partition screen.
    • Select OK on the partitioning screen.

      The Boot Loader screen appears.

12. Select the location for the boot loader.

    

    The installer asks you if you want to put the boot loader in the master boot record (MBR) of the boot disk or the boot sector of the first partition of the disk.

    In most cases, you should choose the default of installing on the MBR.

    However, if you have an older Compaq server — such as the DL360 — with Compaq SmartStart utilities, choose the boot sector of the first partition of the disk. On the Compaq server, the MBR contains the code to allow starting the SmartStart utilities using the F10 key. If the F10 key is not pressed, the server will automatically try to boot from the first partition.

    The Network Configuration screen appears.

13. Enter the network parameters.

    

    The options are:

    bootp/dhcp — press the spacebar 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.

    IP address block — press Tab, without the first box selected. The IP address block is available for input.

    Setup does not ask for network parameters if you do not have a network card. Initially, only the first Ethernet card is enabled. All other network adapters are disabled. See Using DHCP for the Service Console for instructions and cautions on setting up a DHCP-based service console.

    The Hostname Configuration screen appears.

14. Enter the host name in Hostname Configuration.

    Note: Be sure to include the full domain name if you are running with domains.

    The Time Zone screen appears.

15. Select your time zone.

    

    You can type U to move quickly to the US time zones or E to move quickly to the European time zones.

    The Root Password screen appears.

16. Specify your desired 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.

    The Add User screen appears.

17. 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. If you wish, you may add those users at this time. However, you may find it more convenient to add them later with the service console's useradd command or by copying the /etc/passwd file from another machine.

    The User Account Setup screen appears.

18. Verify the user account.

    

    From the User Account Setup screen you can add, delete or edit user accounts.

    When all the parameters are entered, the installer formats the disk and starts installing the packages.

    

    The ESX Server Installation Complete screen appears.

19. Reboot from the final screen and continue to configure your server.

    

    Caution: When you reboot, the system boots into a uniprocessor Linux kernel with legacy mode interrupts. Some machines, notably the Dell 8450 and the IBM x440 in 16-way configurations, may be incompatible with legacy mode interrupts. If the system fails to start after the reboot, restart the machine and boot into the multiprocessor Linux kernel by typing linux at the LILO prompt.