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Changing the default HTTP(s) Reverse Proxy Ports on ESXi 8.0 Update 1

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Pre-ESXi 8.0 Update 1, if you needed to modify the default ESXi HTTP(s) Reverse Proxy Ports, you would simply edit the HTTP reverse proxy configuration file, which I have previously blogged about HERE (pre-ESXi 8.0) and HERE (ESXi 8.0).

For ESXi 8.0 Update 1, the process is slightly diffrent as all ESXi configurations including configuration files have been completely migrated to the new ESXi Configuration Store, which was initially introduced back in vSphere 7.0 Update 1, which you can learn more about it HERE and HERE.

While most users stick with the system defaults with port 80 (HTTP) and port 443 (HTTPS), I know there are some organizations that require these ports to be changed to meet certain internal compliance requirements. Below are the updated instructions for modifying the ESXi HTTP(s) Reverse Proxy Ports when using ESXi 8.0 Update 1 or later.

Disclaimer: VMware does not officially support modifying the default HTTP/HTTPS ports on an ESXi host.

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vSphere 8.0 Update 1c resolves Windows VBS performance & Hyper-V Generation 2 Nested VM running on AMD CPU

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vSphere 8.0 Update 1c was just released and one of the resolved issues mentioned in the ESXi release notes is the following:

Nested virtual machines on AMD CPUs with operational systems such as Windows with virtualization-based security (VBS) might experience performance degradation, timeouts, or unresponsiveness due to an issue with the virtualization of AMD's Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI), also known as Nested Page Tables (NPT).

UPDATE (10/11/23) - This is also resolved in the ESXi 7.0 Update 3o release

There are two scenarios in which this fix resolves:

  1. Running Windows Server VM with a Hyper-V enabled Generation 2 VM (Nested Virtualization) on AMD CPU
  2. Running Windows Server VM with VBS Enabled (Non-Nested VM) on AMD CPU

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Creating a custom VIB for ESXi 8.x

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Back in 2012, a VMware Fling was released called VIB Author, which allowed users to create their own custom vSphere Infrastructure Bundles (VIB) that typically would include configuration changes that was not possible when using the vSphere API such as enabling custom ESXi firewall ports or even bundling up custom utilities that could run within the ESXi Shell.

The VIB Author tool was eventually deprecated and removed due to the lack of support from Engineering, after all, it was released as a Fling. While the need for opening non-standard ESXi firewall port has greatly improved over the years, with the majority of 2nd and 3rd party solutions simply incorporating that into their solution offering, there are still use cases for requiring a custom VIB.

Even with the VIB Author Fling being deprecated, many in the community was still able to construct custom VIBs which were still compatible with later ESXi 5.x to 7.x releases. In fact, I even use the VIB Author to make it easier to distribute and install the popular ghettoVCB solution which can be installed using either a VIB or an Offline Bundle, another format the VIB Author tool supports creating.

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