The response and feedback from our customers on the recently released HTML5 Embedded Host Client for ESXi Fling has just been absolutely phenomenal. Having only been released for a little less than two weeks ago, it has also become the #1 Fling on the VMware Labs which is an amazing accomplishment in it itself as well as to the awesome work from both the Engineers: Etienne and George.
Having said that, both Etienne and George have not stopped and have been quite busy in the last couple of weeks. They have been working adding new features based on feedback from our customers as well as any bug fixes that have been reported. Today, I am please to announce that they have just released version2 of the Embedded Host Client for ESXi which you can find here. If you have v1 installed, you can perform an "update" by running the following ESXCLI command:
[root@mini:~] esxcli software vib update -v /esxui-3015331.vib
Installation Result
Message: Operation finished successfully.
Reboot Required: false
VIBs Installed: VMware_bootbank_esx-ui_0.0.2-0.1.3015331
VIBs Removed: VMware_bootbank_esx-ui_0.0.2-0.1.2976804
VIBs Skipped:
In addition to the new features listed below in v2, I would also like to mention we now have both an installable VIB as well as an offline bundle as some of you have been asking for which will allow you to use vSphere Update Manager (VUM) to automate the deployment of the Embedded Host Client across your ESXi hosts.
What's new in v2:
- Host
- Improved host performance monitoring UI
- Composite CPU/memory figure
- Virtual Machines
- VM Snapshot support.
- In-browser VM console full screen support.
- In-browser VM console 'shrink’ support.
- Create Wizard: Mac OS guest creation has been enabled.
- Storage
- Completed file browser (copy/move/delete/create directory/upload/download)
- Right click on VMX file in browser to register VM
- Mount/create NFS datastores
- Create VMFS datastore (currently only on disks that don't have a partition table)
- Extend VMFS datastore (currently only onto disks that don't have a partition table)
- Mount/Unmount VMFS datastore
- Networking
- Firewall ruleset listing (currently read-only)
- General Features
- Double click title bar to enlarge dialogs and wizards
- Alt + drag in a dialog or wizard to resize
- Locale override (we still only support en-US at this stage)
- Customizable session timeout.
I have already deployed the latest version in my lab and I have to say, the new features rock. One tiny little feature which I really like is a session timeout count down which appears on your browser tab of the Embedded Host Client when left idle.
In my opinion, the attention to details both big and small is what really differentiates this UI from any other that I have used and really provides for a fantastic user experience. Keep up the great work guys!
If you have any feedback, please leave a comment either on my blog or on the Fling site and who knows, your request might just make it into the next release 🙂
very nice!
Don't forget there is a VMware community for this where I have posted my feedback. https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/hostclient/content?filterID=contentstatus%5Bpublished%5D~objecttype~objecttype%5Bthread%5D
thx man its very intresting
I see my suggestion was taken for UI timeout, thanks guys!
Do you know when it will support ESXi Free? This is the number one reason I want this fling. Half of our hosts are licensed while the hosts in our smaller locations are ESXi Free.
Hi Cormang,
Thanks for the feedback. This is something the Engineers are still looking into, but there's not ETA on this.
Thanks for the reply. I've been testing it out on a licensed and a free ESXi host. It would be nice if the warning on an unlicensed host included examples of what can and cannot be achieved on with the Embedded Host Client.
Cheers.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll share this with the Engineers to see if there's something they can do at least a note/warning would definitely help. Basically with Free ESXi License today, only read-operations are allowed, so you wouldn't be able to perform any operations (E.g. power on a VM)
Yes, thanks for the feedback. We're currently trying to sort out this situation, but we are also considering options to give better feedback about what will and what won't work. We were thinking of disabling the buttons to indicate that an action was unavailable... thoughts?
How do I get access to this? Is it a private beta? Going to the links provided gives "access denied"
It's available to general public. Are you visiting https://labs.vmware.com/flings/esxi-embedded-host-client and selecting the checkbox to download the VIB?
Very nice - just installed in ESXi 5.5u2 running under VMware Fusion 7.x.
I don't see any way to manage VMware tools settings for ESXi itself - am I missing it, or do you still have to use vCenter to do this?
Hi Russ,
Can you be a bit more specific about what you're trying to do?