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Quick Tip - How to download ESXi ISO image for all releases including patch updates?

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Not all ESXi releases, including patch updates are available as an ISO image that can be downloaded. Depending on the type of ESXi release, it will either be available as an ISO and Offline Bundle (zip) format which can downloaded from the ESXi Customer Connect portal or only as an Offline Bundle which must be downloaded from the VMware Patch portal.

I typically see folks forgetting about the VMware Patch portal, which also provides patch updates for the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA), when they are searching for a new ESXi updates. Let's take a look at an example using the ESXi 7.0 Update 3 release, as you can see from the screenshot below, you can download 7.0 Update 3c, d, f and g from the Customer Connector portal but for 7.0 Update 3e, i, j and k you will need to use the VMware Patch portal.


As mentioned earlier, when downloading ESXi patches from the VMware Patch portal, they are only available in the Offline Bundle format, which might work for most typical patch use cases but in some scenarios, you may actually want it in an ISO format, especially for initial installation.

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ESXi on palm size iKOOLCORE R1

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Towards the end of 2022, I came to learn about a really fascinating mini PC called the R1, that is manufactured by a company called iKOOLCORE, which is based out of China. iKOOLCORE is described as specializing in open source firewall applications and the R1 adds some interesting networking possibilities as you will see shortly.


What really makes the R1 standout is that it comes equipped with four built-in ethernet adapters that is packaged into a super compact form factor with a pretty elegant design. In fact, the R1 might actually be the worlds smallest x86 system that literally fits in the palm of your hand! 😎

With the compact design and flexibility in networking, the R1 can certainly enable a number of interesting use cases for VMware Homelabs like running infrastructure systems (vCenter Server Appliance, VMware Cloud Builder, Active Directory, etc.) to networking services (DNS, DHCP, Firewall, VPN, etc). The R1 can also make for a great portable homelab that you can bring anywhere and not have to worry about space or noise and is powered simply through USB-PD (Power Delivery) which makes it even more friendly to travel with.

The only thing left was to get my hands on the R1 and thanks to the creator and designer of the R1, who goes by the name of Jackeroo, I was able to give the R1 a spin and explore it from a VMware Homelab perspective.

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VMware Cloud Foundation with a single ESXi host for Management Domain?

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By default, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) requires a minimum of 4 ESXi hosts to construct the Management Domain which is fine for a production environment, but it can be a challenge for those interested in explore VCF in a homelab setting.

I recently came to learn about a really cool tidbit from one of our VCF Engineers on how you can actually deploy a VCF Management Domain using just a single ESXi host, ideal for a homelab setup! 😍


Not only could this benefit users in deploying a physical VCF setup but it would also benefit anyone using my Automated Lab Deployment Script for VCF, which makes it super easy by leveraging my Nested ESXi Virtual Appliance VMs.


In fact, that was how I quickly verified this trick works using my VCF automation script 😀

The way that this work is a configuration change to Cloud Builder to tell it to allow a single ESXi host to be used and it will simply setup a single node vSAN Cluster, which is typically how you would bootstrap if you were doing a greenfield deployment. The only difference here is that instead of adding additional 3 x ESXi hosts to provide redundancy for Management Domain, it simply is relaxing that requirement and thus allowing for a single ESXi host. vSAN is still a requirement for VCF Management Domain, so ensure you can meet those requirements still.

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