WilliamLam.com

  • About
    • About
    • Privacy
  • VMware Cloud
  • Tanzu
    • Application Modernization
    • Tanzu services
    • Tanzu Community Edition
    • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
    • vSphere with Tanzu
  • Home Lab
  • Nested Virtualization
  • Apple

Simplified Nested ESXi installation in ESXi 7.0 Update 2 using HTTP Boot over VirtualEFI

03.22.2021 by William Lam // 19 Comments

Deploying an ESXi scripted installation aka Kickstart running within a VM (Nested ESXi) has a number of benefits, especially for testing and development purposes. This was something I did regularly as a customer, especially with new releases of ESXi to ensure our existing automation scripts and processes continued to work before rolling out into production. ESXi kickstart itself is pretty straight forward, but the required supporting infrastructure (PXE Server, DHCP, TFTP, etc) that needs to be configured, especially for a greenfield deployment can often be challenging for new comers.

Even with an existing PXE infrastructure, it can often be difficult to configure or troubleshoot depending on your level of access which does not add any value in actually testing or automating the ESXi scripted installation process. In ESXi 7.0 Update 2, an enhancement was made to the Virtual Machine's UEFI firmware called VirtualEFI that would enable ESXi to perform an HTTP Boot given the ESXi bootloader URL and without requiring any of the traditional PXE infrastructure.

To take advantage of this new capability, you just need to have a physical server running ESXi 7.0 Update 2 and a VM that is configured with the latest vHW19 compatibility. To configure HTTP boot, you will need to add the following two VM Advanced Settings:

  • networkBootProtocol - httpv4 or httpv6
  • networkBootUri - HTTP URL to the ESXi bootloader (bootx64.efi)

Disclaimer: Nested ESXi and Nested Virtualization is not officially supported by VMware

[Read more...]

Categories // Automation, ESXi, Nested Virtualization, vSphere 7.0 Tags // efi, ESXi 7.0 Update 2, Nested ESXi, nested virtualization, UEFI, vSphere 7.0 Update 2

Configure NSX-T Enhanced Data path / Network Stack (ENS) for Nested ESXi

12.10.2019 by William Lam // Leave a Comment

After publishing my Running Nested ESXi, NSX-V or NSX-T on top of NSX-T article which actually turned out to be quite popular, I received an interesting question on whether ENS for NSX-T could also be configured within a Nested ESXi deployment? I was a little familiar with ENS, which I will explain in a second. However, I was not completely sure about the benefits of running ENS in a Nested environment.

With the help from my friend Frank Escaros-Buechsel, who actually works in our NFV group at VMware. Frank helped validate the instructions but he also provided some additional insights on why this could be useful in a lab setup for verifying configuration and behaviors when additional tuning maybe required. If you are NOT running NFV-based workloads, ENS is not something you need to configure when running NSX-T using Nested ESXi.

So what is ENS?  Enhanced Network Stack (ENS) also referred to as Enhanced Data Path is an NSX-T capability which was first introduced with NSX-T 2.3. ENS is specifically designed for Network Function Virtualization (NFV) workloads that require a high performance data path. Such workloads include Telco, 5G and IoT based deployments where improved packet throughput is critical for the responsiveness of these applications.

[Read more...]

Categories // Automation, Nested Virtualization, NSX, PowerCLI Tags // Enhanced Data Path, Enhanced Network Stack, ENS, nested virtualization, Network Function Virtualization, NFV, NSX-T

Running Nested ESXi, NSX-V or NSX-T on top of NSX-T

11.22.2019 by William Lam // 6 Comments

Nested Virtualization is an extremely useful tool that helps customers easily test and try out new VMware products and solutions before rolling that into a proper development environment for further validation. This is especially handy for those wanting to setup an NSX-based environment and simulating their actual deployment topology, configuration and upgrade workflows.

In this past year, I have seen a 10x increase in the number of NSX-T based questions that have come up from customers and our field, the adoption of NSX-T is definitely in full swing. As expected, questions about running Nested ESXi on top of a physical NSX-T deployment has come up and there has actually been several variations that have been asked about whether that is Nested ESXi using VSS, VDS, NSX-V or even NSX-T running on top of an N-VDS, which is the virtual switch that NSX-T uses.

Luckily all of these combinations work and just require some basic configuration changes within NSX-T. However, before I continue, let me remind folks again that VMware does NOT officially support Nested Virtualization.

[Read more...]

Categories // Home Lab, Nested Virtualization, NSX Tags // Nested ESXi, nested virtualization, nested_nsx, NSX-T, NSX-V

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • …
  • 15
  • Next Page »

Search

Author

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group (CIBG) at VMware. He focuses on Cloud Native technologies, Automation, Integration and Operation for the VMware Cloud based Software Defined Datacenters (SDDC)

Connect

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo

Recent

  • How to enable passthrough for USB Network Adapters claimed by ESXi CDCE Driver? 03/30/2023
  • Self-Contained & Automated VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) deployment using new VLC Holodeck Toolkit 03/29/2023
  • ESXi configstorecli enhancement in vSphere 8.0 Update 1 03/28/2023
  • ESXi on Intel NUC 13 Pro (Arena Canyon) 03/27/2023
  • Quick Tip - Enabling ESXi Coredumps to be stored on USB 03/26/2023

Advertisment

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Copyright WilliamLam.com © 2023