Last week I posted an articel about running the vSphere client on a Windows 7 workstation. This was a problem, but now after Update 1 for vSphere Windows 7 and Windows 2008R2 are now supported.

VMWare released Update 1 for vCenter Server 4.0. The release notes are found here : Link.

VMWare has recently launched a work around for the problem of running the vSphere client on a Windows 7 workstations.

Link to the document : http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011329

1. First get the following tools: 7-Zip(Free), WinImage(Demo)
2. Download the ESXi ISO (VMware-VMvisor-Installer-4.0.0-164009.x86_64.iso)
3. Open the ISO with 7-Zip
4. Open “image.tgz” with 7-Zip
5. Browse to “\image.tgz.temptar\usr\lib\vmware\installer\VMware-VMvisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd.bz2\”
6. Extract “VMware-VMvisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd”
7. Open WinImage and go to Disk, click on “Restore Virtual Harddisk Image on physical drive”
8. Select a physical drive
9. Select “VMware-VMvisor-big-164009-x86_64.dd”
10. And click “yes” to write the DD image to the USB Disk

By default this isn’t possible and supported. But there is a way to get this working.

• Go to the ESXi Console and press alt+F1.

Installing HP Insight Management Agents on ESX Server

In this case, I am using HP Insight Management Agents for VMware 8.2.5 (available here). I am also using a HP DL380 G6 Proliant servers with VMware versions 4.0.

Note: do not include the quotes (”) when entering commands.

PREPARE:

1. Download the correct Insight Manager agents for VMware.
2. Unzip the tgz file using WinRAR or something similar, and peruse the readme for up-to-date info.
3. Using the ILO utility or the physical console, hit Alt-F1, login as root at the command line.
4. To allow root ssh access in ESX as well as enable sshd client access (SFTP, SSH), we have to change the local sshd_config file.
5. At the command line, type: “vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config”
6. Go to the line that says PermitRootLogin, change from “no” to “yes”
7. If you are unfamiliar with vi, use arrow keys to navigate, put cursor on the “n” of “no”, hit the i key to insert, then type in “yes” and delete/backspace “no”. Then hit ESC twice to exit Insert mode. Type colon (:) to get the in-editor command line, type “wq!” and hit enter. This will save the doc and exit vi.
8. Back at the command line type: “service sshd restart”, hit enter.
9. After the service restarts, type “logout” to exit the console, hit alt-f11 to go back to the esx screen.