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How to Register a vCenter Server 5.0 with Admin Tool on VCSA 5.1 Using SSH Port Forwarding

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The new vSphere Web Client in vSphere 5.1 supports both vCenter Server 5.0 and 5.1, but before you can connect to a 5.0 system, you will need to manually register the vCenter Server with the vSphere Web Client Admin Tool. In the previous release, you could register a vCenter Server using the Admin Tool which was available by connecting to the localhost web application as outlined here or by performing the same operation via the command-line using /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/scripts/admin-cmd.sh on the VCSA.

It looks like with the latest release, the admin script no longer function ("Cannot connect to vSphere Web Client administration tool.") and since the VCSA does not contain a full blown desktop with a browser like it's ugly Windows cousin ... you will not be able to register any of your existing vCenter Server 5.0 systems. Luckily, you do not need a browser running on the VCSA to perform the registration, you can use the browser on your desktop by simply using SSH port forwarding.

In the example below, I am connecting to my VCSA 5.1 from my iMac via terminal. You will need a system that can reach your VCSA that has a web browser which will be used to access the Admin Tool.

Step 1 -  SSH to your VCSA using the following command, be sure to replace "172.30.0.194" with the IP Address or hostname of your VCSA:

ssh [email protected] -L 9443:127.0.0.1:9443 -N

If the port forward was established correctly, the prompt will just sit there as denoted by the screenshot below.

Note: If you wish for the prompt to return, you can specify the -f flag after "ssh" but this ensures you remember you have a port forwarded.

Step 2 - Open a web browser on your local desktop and connect to the following address:

https://localhost:9443/admin-app

This should launch the vSphere Web Client Admin Tool and allow you to register your vCenter Server 5.0 hosts.

Even though I was able to get this to work, I personally would still prefer to be able to perform this operation via the command-line. I am still hoping that I might have missed something, but I have been told this might be expected 🙁

Thunderbolt Ethernet Adapter in Apple Mac Mini on ESXi 5

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If you followed Apple's recent announcement at their WWDC conference then you would know that they just released a Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter. So, why am I talking about this? Well if you are running ESXi 5 on an Apple Mac Mini like me, then you are probably wondering if you can get another network interface on the Mini as it only has a single network adapter. The answer is YES!

To get ESXi 5 to recognize the Thunderbolt adapter, you will need to download and install an additional Broadcom driver (tg3 3.123b.v50.1) or you can create a customized ISO with the driver built in using the steps outlined here for a new installation.

UPDATE (12/21): A custom ESXi ISO is no longer needed, you can use ESXi 5.0 Update 2 which includes the necessary driver to support Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter. Please take a look at this article here for the details.

If you are just installing the driver on an existing ESXi 5 installation, extract the offline bundle and upload to your ESXi host and run the following command:

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/mini-local-datastore-1/tg3-3.123b.v50.1-offline_bundle-682322.zip

Here is the output from ESXCLI on how ESXi sees the Thunderbolt adapter:

As you can see, it shows up with no description for the device and this is the same when running lspci, it just shows up as a network controller from Broadcom. This is not a big deal, but I assume this has something to do with the high numbering of the vmnic instead of being vmnic1 it's vmnic32.

I also performed some basic network testing by yanking the ethernet cable on the onboard network adapter and ensured traffic continued to flow and vice versa with the other Thunderbolt adapter. Everything works beautifully and now you can have some network redundancy built into your Mac Mini or if you need the throughput for all those VMs you plan on running 😉

Big thanks to Randy K. for hooking me up with a Thunderbolt adapter!

 

That's so cool! Running ESXi 5.0 & 5.1 on Apple Mac Mini

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Those of you who follow me on twitter should know that I recently got my hands on an Apple Mac Mini Server (Thanks Randy K.) and are probably thinking I would install Apple OSX on the Mini. Nope! I am actually running vSphere ESXi 5.0 or 5.1 on the Mac Mini!

UPDATE (12/21): Yo no longer need to create a customized ESXi ISO for Apple Mac Mini, the necessary drivers are now included in the new ESXi 5.0 Update 2 and will work out of the box. Please take a look at this article for more details.

UPDATE (01/18): To run ESXi 5.1 on Mac Mini 5,1 or 5,3 please follow the same steps outlined below but for an ESXi 5.1 ISO image. If you are trying to run ESXi 5.0 or 5.1 on the new 2012 Apple Mac Mini 6,2 please refer to this blog post for the instructions.

Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by VMware. Use at your own risk.

Note: I did not have a spare monitor at home and luckily the Mac Mini has a DVI output which I was able to connect to my 46" TV. Nothing like ESXi on the big screen 🙂

Even though this is not officially supported by VMware, it is still a very cool solution and the Mac Mini is great form factor for a vSphere home lab. I also want to mention that this was only possible with the research from the folks over at Paraguin Consulting who initially blogged about the process needed to get ESXi 5 running on a Mac Mini. I would highly recommend you check out their blog post which provides additional details as well as a step by step installation guide including screenshots for each step.

I did not have access to an Apple Super Drive which is what the Paraguin folks used in their installation guide, as they thought formatting a USB key would have taken too long ... and who has a CD burner these days? 😉 There is also an additional step that is needed to get network connectivity which requires the user to manually install a network driver on the ESXi host.

I decided to go down the route of using a USB key to perform the installation and using a spare 1GB USB key, I created a custom ESXi installation that included the network driver which allows for network connectivity during and after the installation.

What you will need:

Step 1 - Extract the offline bundle "tg3-3.120h.v50.2-offline_bundle-547149.zip" from Broadcom zip file

Step 2 - Use Image Builder to add the Broadcom driver and create a custom ESXi 5 ISO (steps taken from this VMware KB article)

# Add the ESXi 5.0 Update 1 Offline Bundle

Add-EsxSoftwareDepot "C:\VMware-ESXi-5.0.0-623860-depot.zip"

# Add the Broadcom Offline VIB

Add-EsxSoftwareDepot "C:\tg3-3.120h.v50.2-offline_bundle-547149.zip"

# Create a new Image Profile (in example, I'm using the full version w/tools)

New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile "ESXi-5.0.0-623860-standard" -name "ESXi50u1-Custom"

# Add the broadcom driver to our Image Profile

Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile "ESXi50u1-Custom" -SoftwarePackage "net-tg3"

# Create an ISO from our custom Image Profile

Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile "ESXi50u1-Custom" -ExportToISO -filepath C:\VMware-ESXi-5.0u1-Custom.iso

Step 3 - Plug in a USB key into your system and run UNetbootin which will take the custom ISO we just created and make it bootable on the USB key

Step 4 - Finally, power on your Mac Mini and plug in the USB key. You can either hold the "Alt/Option" key while the system is booting and select the EFI volume OR just plug the USB key and the ESXi installer should automatically start up.

After a few minutes, you should now have ESXi 5 running on your Mac Mini, here is my setup:

Note: If you wish to add a custom kickstart file so it automatically installs and configures the host, take a look at this blog post for the details. If you want the Mac Mini to automatically boot from USB without having to press the "Alt/Option" key after installation, you can set the default boot device by following this article here.

Since you are running ESXi on Apple hardware, you can also create Mac OSX Virtual Machines (10.5 Server and 10.6 Server) and with the latest release of vSphere 5.0 Update 1, OSX 10.7 (Lion) is now officially supported. To install OSX 10.7 as a VM, make sure you follow the instructions here.

Here is a screenshot of running OSX Lion 64bit as a VM running on ESXi 5 running on a Mac Mini 😀

If you are looking to refresh your vSphere home lab, definitely consider looking at the Mac Mini, which can get up to a max of 16GB of memory. Also if you are wondering if other people are doing this, I would recommend you check out Christopher Well's vSamarai blog here which details his experience using the Mac Mini as well as voting for his VMworld CFP which will also include topic about running ESXi on Mac Mini.

I want to thank Randy K. again for lending me the Mac Mini, you rock dude! Hopefully this will not be the last article about the Mac Mini 😉

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