Skip to main content

VMWare ESXi free?




Much is made of the fact that VMWare's ESXi hypervisor is "free"



As best I can tell, you can install the hypervisor on a host for "free".



Because ESXi does not have a built in management console, you need a program, of some sort, to connect to the ESXi hosts to "manage" them. By "manage" I mean, start, stop, install, reboot and backup vms.



If you install the free ESXi on a host and connect to it via a web browser, you are prompted to download vSphere to manage the host. OK, but vSphere is, as best I can tell, not free. When you install it you are continuously reminded that you have only 60 days to evaluate vSphere.



My question is this: Is there a completely free management tool for ESXi hosts that enables one to:





  • Create VMs

  • Modify VMs settings (memory etc.)

  • Power VMs on and off

  • Backup the VM (via any means)

  • Resore a VM from a backup



Failing that, without licensing something from VMWare, is there any tool that will let you manage your hosts after the 60 day evaluation period of vSphere ends?




I have not found a straightforward explanation of this on VMWare's web site. Does anyone out there know the answer (even better if you can point me to a clear explanation on VMWare's website...)


Answer



You have to pay for vSphere with its various modules and extra features but not to use the vSphere Client to connect to a free ESXi.



I think where you may be getting the license message from is although ESXi is free, you still need to request a free license key from VMWare.



Login to your ESXi box with vSphere Client and go to Configuration -> Licensed Features -> Edit.



If you are set to evaluation mode, that is what you are getting the license warning from.




VMWare should have emailed you a license key when you signed up on their website to download ESXi. If not, you can go through the download steps again and the license key should be on one of the pages.



For me, if I go to https://www.vmware.com/products/esxi/ hit Download, login with my free VMWare account, then on the page with all of the download links, at the top of the list is my ESXi License.



The reason you are seeing the license message about vSphere is that in the Evaluation mode, some of the extra features that are only available with vSphere are enabled, once you enter a free ESXi license, those will be disabled and you won't get prompted anymore.



Also, you can use the vCenter Converter in the standalone mode (runs off of your workstation) for free with ESXi. This tool is immensely useful for moving VMs on and off of ESXi. http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

linux - iDRAC6 Virtual Media native library cannot be loaded

When attempting to mount Virtual Media on a iDRAC6 IP KVM session I get the following error: I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and: $ javaws -version Java(TM) Web Start 1.6.0_16 $ uname -a Linux aud22419-linux 2.6.28-15-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 31 13:39:06 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ firefox -version Mozilla Firefox 3.0.14, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 mozilla.org On Windows + IE it (unsurprisingly) works. I've just gotten off the phone with the Dell tech support and I was told it is known to work on Linux + Firefox, albeit Ubuntu is not supported (by Dell, that is). Has anyone out there managed to mount virtual media in the same scenario?
Post a Comment
Read more

hp proliant - Smart Array P822 with HBA Mode?

We get an HP DL360 G8 with an Smart Array P822 controller. On that controller will come a HP StorageWorks D2700 . Does anybody know, that it is possible to run the Smart Array P822 in HBA mode? I found only information about the P410i, who can run HBA. If this is not supported, what you think about the LSI 9207-8e controller? Will this fit good in that setup? The Hardware we get is used but all original from HP. The StorageWorks has 25 x 900 GB SAS 10K disks. Because the disks are not new I would like to use only 22 for raid6, and the rest for spare (I need to see if the disk count is optimal or not for zfs). It would be nice if I'm not stick to SAS in future. As OS I would like to install debian stretch with zfs 0.71 as file system and software raid. I have see that hp has an page for debian to. I would like to use hba mode because it is recommend, that zfs know at most as possible about the disk, and I'm independent from the raid controller. For us zfs have many benefits,
Post a Comment
Read more

apache 2.2 - Server Potentially Compromised -- c99madshell

So, low and behold, a legacy site we've been hosting for a client had a version of FCKEditor that allowed someone to upload the dreaded c99madshell exploit onto our web host. I'm not a big security buff -- frankly I'm just a dev currently responsible for S/A duties due to a loss of personnel. Accordingly, I'd love any help you server-faulters could provide in assessing the damage from the exploit. To give you a bit of information: The file was uploaded into a directory within the webroot, "/_img/fck_uploads/File/". The Apache user and group are restricted such that they can't log in and don't have permissions outside of the directory from which we serve sites. All the files had 770 permissions (user rwx, group rwx, other none) -- something I wanted to fix but was told to hold off on as it wasn't "high priority" (hopefully this changes that). So it seems the hackers could've easily executed the script. Now I wasn't able
Post a Comment
Read more