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On my PC I have installed ESXi (WMware Workstation) & vSphere Client. I want to connect from my laptop to the ESXi Server. Can anyone help me out?

I tried (in vSphere Client) to Add Networking -> VMKernel -> Use vSwitch0 -> check vMotion and Fault Tolerance... and I get an error "There are insufficient licenses to complete this operation". I dont know how to connect or if this is the way to do it...

Remus Rigo
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  • My host OS is Win7 and in VMware Workstation I installed ESXi 4.1.0 and I want to access ESXi server from another pc in my home LAN – Remus Rigo Dec 29 '11 at 21:51
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    Why on earth did you install ESXi inside Workstation? – growse Dec 29 '11 at 21:53
  • Must be a (strange) hobby: http://serverfault.com/questions/343947/install-esxi-4-1-on-windows-server-2008-hyper-v – Sven Dec 29 '11 at 21:55
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    @growse - there's plenty of reasons. The most common one is evaluation without having to buy hardware. I set up a vSphere cluster inside VMWare Workstation using all the trial editions as a proof of concept for a client before they forked out $100,000 for licenses and hardware. – Mark Henderson Dec 29 '11 at 21:55
  • i don't have another pc available.. – Remus Rigo Dec 29 '11 at 21:56
  • @SvenW maybe you can help me out and give me some tips on how to build a home lab... at least i'm trying... – Remus Rigo Dec 29 '11 at 21:58
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    @Mark - if you can't afford a cheap test box, you can't afford the project. – growse Dec 29 '11 at 21:58
  • @MarkHenderson the term "utterly unsupported" springs immediately to mind ("piss-poor performance" is right behind it). I suppose there are cases where that might not matter (like a quick PoC before shelling out for hardware), but still - EW! – voretaq7 Dec 29 '11 at 22:01
  • @Mark But I would underline that you know what you do. And that this was only for evaluation. Growse stated it correctly: A test PC is available for a few bucks; and even if you want to test, then you can plug a new hard drive in an existing PC and try on that one. – mailq Dec 29 '11 at 22:02
  • @RemusRigo My suggestion would be to install either ESXi or HyperV on the bare metal and build your lab within that - this way you can practice your admin skills on the VMs. For learning the hypervisors themselves you really need the hardware environment to play with all the cool features - IMHO You can't really get a feel for failover, DRS, etc. without actually physically yanking out plugs. – voretaq7 Dec 29 '11 at 22:05
  • @growse - I as a contractor couldn't afford the test boxes (you need at least two boxes + SAN to show HA and vMotion, or you need one workstation with a crapload of RAM, three ESXi instances and a small FreeNAS/OpenFiler/WSS instance). The client had loads of cash, but weren't going to pay for anything until we could prove it worked. – Mark Henderson Dec 29 '11 at 22:13

2 Answers2

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vMotion and FT are advanced, licensed-only features of ESXi. They are not required for remote access.

You need to make sure that VMWare Workstation has a bridged network connection for the NICs you have exposed to your virtualised ESXi instance.

If you've only added one NIC to your ESXi installation, then it's just a matter of loading the vSphere Client on your laptop and connecting to the IP address of the ESXi instance.

If this is a brand new installation of ESXi, you may need to go to the console of the VM and log in (it's an orange and black screen), and configure your management network from there, to make sure it's got an IP address etc.

Mark Henderson
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If you really did install ESXi inside Workstation (again... Why!!!???), you need to set the network mode of the VM in Workstation to bridged. ESXi will then effectively be on the same network as your computer, and you can either assign it a static IP address or it will pick one up from your DHCP server.

Then you can connect with vSphere client.

growse
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