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Installed ESXi 4 (with FTP & SSH enabled) & migrated VM’s from workstation

UDATE: This is an outdated article, since ESXi 4.1 you can enable SSH (remote & local) from the VI client through “security features” in “configuration”.

After my XenServer5.5 experience i decided to use VMWare ESXi, let’s be honest, the leader in the market.
First problem, installation would fail because no supported NIC was found. I tried several NIC’s such as 3Com 3C509 & Realtek RTL8139 but no luck.
I ordered an Intel PRO/1000 Desktop PCI adapter. I tested with the ESXi 4 CD and it was detected and supported.
Success, then I made a custom ESXi 4 CD with FTP & SSH enabled (trough custom oem.tgz) and installed ESXi. All went flawless.
Since it took some time for me to test the different NIC’s and finally order the Intel NIC. I had already installed VMWare Workstation evaluation on my desktop and had recreated my VM’s. Of course my PC was not 24/24 online so the website I’m writing this on was only at some times available.

After ESXi was installed and running, I used the VMWare Converter Standalone to convert my workstation VM’s to ESXi. The Windows VM went excellent.
The Ubuntu VM was installed through VMWare Workstation easy install mode, and on the ESXi it would boot fine but would not load the correct drivers for the NIC.
I was trying different things on it, but without NIC there wasn’t much i could do. I tried compiling the VMware tools and drivers but had failures.
I finally had to make a new VM with Ubuntu server fresh install and copied the files and exported the SQL database (on my VMWare workstation i could still boot the VM with network access). But after at least 6 hours of work ESXi was running with the 2 VM’s and the website was operational.

Since i use Windows 7 I had to follow a how-to because Vsphere Client fails on Windows 7 (have to copy system.dll and make a batch script). After updates from VMWare the latest Vsphere Client works fine on Windows 7.
Yesterday and today I finished up the Windows VM and moved PC’s in to the domain, copied back files & setup shares.

Now on to some last items, torrentflux-b4rt, truecrypt, moblock, RAS, …

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