building vms on esxi -...

ESXi Basics v2.0Building VMs on ESXi

Objective:This document is intended to serve as a quick guide to setting up a new virtual machine within the ESXi hypervisor. ESXi is VMWare’s type 1 hypervisor that runs directly on the host hardware providing virtualization of the machine’s physical resources.

Setup:To access the ESXi server for building and maintaining guest machines, you will need to run vSphere Client on a Windows PC that is connected to the lab’s 10.5.84.x network. The client software is available for download from the ESXi server by visiting http://10.5.84.200 in a browser and accepting any certificate warning messages. (The server uses a self signed untrusted certificate)

You will also need a username/password to login. See Jason Aguila for setting up an account.

Once you have vSphere installed, you can open the program and enter the name of the ESXi server, your username, and your password.

The IP address has been filled in automatically for this example.

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http://10.5.84.200/

ESXi Basics v2.0When you have successfully authenticated, you will be taken to the home screen for ESXi. In an enterprise environment, you may have multiple ESXi severs to manage. In our environment, there is only the single ESXi server at 10.5.84.200.

Because the SSL certificate is self-signed, you will need to choose ‘Ignore’ when prompted. Alternatively, you can import this certificate into your browser’s trusted certificate store eliminating the message in the future.

Once you have clicked ‘Ignore’, you will be taken to the vSphere homepage.

The screen will look like the image below:

Clicking on Inventory will reveal the tree view used to manage the individual VM servers.

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In the image above, Jake’s Island, LeeHsu, and MagicLab are resource pools. Each is a container where a server can live and each resource pool can be assigned various amounts of physical resources on the host ESXi server. In our environment, these are used only to organize machines. You will likely want to have a resource pool created for your class or with a unique name. Faculty will have rights to create pools. Clicking the expand icon next to a resource pool will reveal the list of VMs in that pool.

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In the resource pool named MagicLab, the server Hackerdemia1 has been suspended, kali-vm-2 is running, and all the remaining servers are powered off.

Creating a new machine:

To create a new Virtual Machine, select the resource pool where you would like the machine to live, right click, and select ‘New Virtual Machine’.

For this example, we’ll select ‘Typical’ and choose ‘Next’ where you will be prompted to enter a name for the machine.

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ESXi Basics v2.0

Click next and select the location where you would like to store the VM. Always store your VMs on the destination named ‘EquiStore1’

On the next screen you can select the target operating system. This is purely for identification and does not impact any functionality of the VM.

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The next screen will enable configuration of the network interface. The host has 4 physical interfaces that can be attached to any number of virtual switches and virtual networks. For this example system I’m choosing the ‘VM Network’ .

Each VM has at least 1 virtual disk to hold the operating system. When this disk is created, you have the option of allowing the drive to grow as needed or pre-allocated. You also have the option of pre-clearing the space on the volume making it impossible to recover data in the unclaimed space.

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I recommend Thin Provision as this will make the best use of our shared storage space.

On the next screen you will be able to review your settings and you will want to make one more important edit before you finish.

Click the box for ‘Edit the virtual machine settings before completion’ and click ‘Continue’

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Adjust your required RAM and CPUs if needed. To install an operating system on the Virtual Machine you will want to attach the virtual CD/DVD drive to an .iso image. Select the CD/DVD device and browse to the ISO directory on the Equistore1 datastore.

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Be sure to click the box next to ‘Connect at power on’ too. This will enable the VM to boot from your iso image.

If you click Finish, you will be returned back to the inventory view in vSphere where you can select the name of your new machine and click the green Power On button. If you do that and select the ‘Console’ tab, you will see the console of your new VM.

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ESXi Basics v2.0

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ESXi Basics v2.0

Appendix A – User CreationA custom role has been created for students that provides more limited access to features on the hypervisor. For example, the ability to delete virtual machines and change permissions of roles has been disabled. The role has been developed to provide a set of permissions that is as close to an administrator as possible while keeping inexperienced users from impacting the availability of the hypervisor for other users. All student users of ESXi should be assigned the role of Student while instructors should be assigned the role of Administrator

Currently the user accounts are maintained locally on the ESXi server. Future plans include linking authentication to a lab maintained AD Domain.

For creating a local account, connect to the ESXi server via the vSphere Client

Select the hypervisor in the left tree and click the Local Users & Groups tab.

Right click anywhere where the current users are listed and select ‘Add’

A dialog box will display which will allow you to enter the login name of the new user.

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The only information that is required is login name and password.

Do not check the box to allow shell access for student users. Doing so would permit ssh login to the hypervisor for direct access to the filesystem and VMWare OS and should only be granted on a need to have basis.

Repeat this process for all new users to be added.

Once the new account has been created, you will need to assign the user permission to the hypervisor and a resource pool where they are to build VMs.

Click the Permissions tab and right click to ‘Add Permission’

This adds the permission for a user to the Hypervisor. You will be adding the new account that was just created with a role of either Student or Administrator. Click the Add button and locate the new account.

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Click Add again and OK. Next, select the Role to assign for that user or groups of users if you are adding more than one with a similar role.

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When adding the permission to the Hypervisor, uncheck the box ‘Propogate to Child Objects’ if you do not want this user to have the same role for all resource pools under the hypervisor.

The example below shows the results of logging in as ‘test_student’. This account has access to limited resource pools.

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