{"id":114,"date":"2020-04-02T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T17:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/?p=114"},"modified":"2020-06-14T09:35:52","modified_gmt":"2020-06-14T09:35:52","slug":"nested-esxi-7-in-my-own-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/02\/nested-esxi-7-in-my-own-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"Nested ESXi 7 in my own Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is a Nested ESXi solution ?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is referring to virtualize your virtualization environment, so ESXi will be installed as a VM, hosted itself on a physical ESXi host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why to use it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Definitely is not a solution for Production but is a good one for DEV\/Testing environments or for your lab to test various products\/scenarious. I’ve chosen this solution for my own Lab which is currently running on a Dell PowerEdge R430 with ESXi 7 and vSphere 7 (testing purpose).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installed the physical server with ESXi 7, first using a USB to boot the installer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Step 2 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Installed vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) on ESXi7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note: I will not describe ESXi and vCSA installation here – this is not the goal of this post, there are many other articles about it, just Google it \ud83d\ude09 !<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Created a new VM where I have installed ESXi. I put 4 CPUs, 6 GB RAM and also checked Expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I would recommend to use thin provisioned disks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

CD\/DVD Media – make sure you will choose ESXi installer and check Connect as Power On<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Step 4<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start the new VM and install ESXi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now we have the second ESXi 7 host where IP address is 192.168.0.116<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Step 5<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s add the new host in vSphere. Right click on Datacenter and Add Host…<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fill the new IP address – 192.168.0.116 in this case, and press Next.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Put the connection details for the new ESXi – configured during installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here you go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now I have 2 ESXi hosts in my Lab and I’m ready to test other VMware features \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For now I will keep Maintenance Mode, so no activities on VMs hosted on this new host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a Nested ESXi solution ? It is referring to virtualize your virtualization environment, so ESXi will be installed as a VM, hosted itself on a physical ESXi host. Why to use it? Definitely is not a solution for Production but is a good one for DEV\/Testing environments or for your lab to test […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bogdanburuiana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}