About this Guide

VMware ESX Server 2.1
Features | Documentation | Knowledge Base | Discussion Forums

VMware ESX Server runs directly on your system hardware to provide a secure, uniform platform for easily deploying, managing, and remotely controlling multiple operating systems.

With VMware ESX Server:

Applications running on dedicated systems can be moved into separate virtual machines on a single, more reliable and scalable system.
Servers can be remotely managed from any location, simplifying server maintenance.
Service levels can be guaranteed with advanced resource management controls.
Common monitoring and management tasks are scriptable.
Capacity can be increased without adding new physical systems.

About this Guide

This manual, ESX Server Installation Guide, describes how to install the ESX 2.1 Server and access the server using the VMware Management Interface.

Intended Audience

The information written in this manual is for anyone who needs to install the ESX Server and has experience as Windows or Linux system administrators.

Technical Support Resources

The VMware Web Site

The latest documentation and technical support are available on the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/support/troubleshooting information, use the Knowledge Base.

ESX Server Documentation

ESX Server documentation consists of the following publications:

ESX Server Administrator's Guide
ESX Server Installation Guide
VMware Scripting API User's Manual
ESX Server Systems Compatibility Guide
ESX Server I/O Adapter Compatibility Guide
ESX Server SAN Compatibility Guide
ESX Server Backup Compatibility Guide

VMware Newsgroups

The VMware newsgroups are primarily forums for users to help each other. You are encouraged to read and post issues, work-arounds and fixes. While VMware personnel may read and post to the newsgroups, they are not a channel for official support. The VMware NNTP news server is at news.vmware.com.

The following group is devoted to ESX Server issues:
vmware.esx-server

VMware Community Discussion Forum

The VMware Community is a set of moderated discussion forums hosted on the VMware Web site, and is open to all VMware users. In the forums, VMware Community members come together to exchange information, ask technical questions and share comments. VMware representatives monitor the forum and respond to questions as appropriate. You can join the community discussion forum at www.vmware.com/community.

Reporting Problems

These guidelines describe the information you may be asked to provide when reporting problems.

Be sure to register your serial number. If you are requesting support directly from VMware, then report your problems using the support request form on the VMware Web site at www.vmware.com/requestsupport.

When requesting support from VMware, run the /usr/bin/vm-support script on the service console and save the resulting esx-<date>-<unique-xnumber>.tgz file. This script collects and packages all relevant ESX Server system and configuration information and ESX Server log files. This information can be used to analyze the problem you are encountering.

If a virtual machine exits abnormally or crashes, please save the log file (vmware.log in the same directory as your .vmx file) and any core files (core or vmware-core in that directory). Also, please save the virtual machine's configuration (.vmx) file and any other information that might help reproduce the problem.
Be sure to record a description of your physical hardware and of the software (operating system and applications) that was running in the virtual machine. This information may be required when requesting support.
A problem in the VMkernel normally causes the machine to display an error screen for a period of time and then reboot. If you specified a VMware core dump partition when you configured your machine, the VMkernel also generates a core dump and error log. More serious problems in the VMkernel can freeze the machine without an error screen or core dump.
In either of these cases, when reporting problems directly to VMware describe the steps you took in the period before this failure (including any information listed in point 1 above, if applicable). Include this information in your support request, along with the contents of /var/log/messages from the service console. Also include the core dump and error log, if any. These can be found in files named vmkernel-core.<date> and vmkernel-log.<date> in the /root directory after you reboot your machine.

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