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ESXi on AMD ChangWang CW56-58

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It can be pretty difficult to find an AMD-based small form factor (SFF) kit that is compatible with recent ESXi releases. The large majority of these AMD SFF kits all use Realtek for their onboard network adaptor and Realtek does not have a driver for ESXi, nor have they expressed any interests in creating one.

This is also quite unfortunate, as there have been some pretty interesting AMD kits that have been released in the market, but they can not be fully utilized due to the network driver challenges. Prior to the holiday break, fellow VMware colleague Hilko Lantinga, who works in our End User Computing (EUC) division had reached out about a new AMD kit that he had just acquired and has been very happy with after putting it through its paces, especially from a power efficiency standpoint for his updated VMware Homelab.

The system is from a vendor called ChangWang, which I was not familiar with and the AMD kit is the CW56-58, which is based on an AMD Zen 3 architecture (7nm) and what stands out immediately is that this system includes four built-in network adaptors (hint: they are all compatible with latest ESXi 8.0 release)! I asked if he would be willing to sharing his thorough review with the community as this could be a really interesting system and below is Hilko's detailed write-up in his own words.


The following content below is a contribution from Hilko Lantinga.

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Heads Up - ESXi 8.0 Host Client unable to attach existing virtual disk to VM

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A couple of days ago, I had received an email from a customer that after upgrading to ESXi 8.0, they were no longer able to attach an existing virtual disk (VMDK) to a VM using the ESXi Host Client, which is accessible by opening a browser to the Hostname/IP Address of your ESXi host.


After selecting the desired VMDK to attach in ESXi Host Client wizard, the customer had noticed several fields were not populated as shown in the screenshot above and the workflow would not be allowed to complete as these fields are required.

Note: This issue also affects ESXi 7.0 Update 3i and potentially other newer releases, if they also contain the 2.x version of the ESXi Host Client. One workaround, which I have personally verified with ESXi 7.0 Update 3i is to uninstall the bundled esxi-ui VIB and install the prior version by downloading the ESXi offline depot (zip) for ESXi 7.0 Update 3g. While this may not be officially supported, for those that have a standalone ESXi host or using the Free ESXi version, this may be an acceptable workaround until a fix is available in a future patch/update. For detailed instructions, see my reply on this VMTN thread.

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How to configure VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG) database for vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) in an air-gapped environment?

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I was setting up another vSphere 8 environment in my homelab using my handy Automated vSphere & vSAN 8 Lab Deployment Script and I was reminded of another vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) question that I had received during VMware Explore Barcelona 2022.

The question was about configuring vCenter Server that would include full vLCM functionality in an air-gapped environment, where internet connectivity would not be available directly or in-directly through the use of a network proxy. Today, the VMware Compatibility Guide (VCG) database that is integrated with vLCM can only be synchronized when when your vCenter Server is connected to VMware's online repository when VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) is enabled.


To synchronize the VCG database using the vSphere UI, navigate to the vLCM administrator page and under Actions, select the Sync HCL operation, which will download the latest VCG database from VMware's online repo. You can also automate this using the vLCM REST API with the Update Compatibility Data Task API.

Here is a quick PowerCLI snippet performing the same operation but using the API instead:

Connect-CiSServer -Server vcsa.primp-industries.local -user administrator[at]vsphere[dot]local -Password VMware1!
$hclCompatDataService = Get-CisService -Name com.vmware.esx.hcl.compatibility_data
$hclLastUpdateOnline = $hclCompatDataService.get().updated_at

$hclCompatDataService.'update$task'()

However, for environments that can not connect to VMware's online repo, this poses a big operational challenge, especially for those looking to transition from vSphere Update Manager (VUM) to vLCM. For the vSAN HCL, we already provide a solution for air-gapped environments by providing an offline copy of the vSAN HCL database which detailed in VMware KB 2145116.

If a connected vCenter Server can download the VCG that vLCM uses, I figure it should also be possible to replicate that behavior for an air-gapped environment? ?

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