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lexsys
Asked: 2009-11-12 22:45:04 +0800 CST

How to install CentOS 5.4 as VMWare ESXi 4.0 guest remotely?

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I have VMWare ESXi 4.0 preinstalled on the server with IP A. I also can use IPs B and C. I have KVM access to this server and I can connect to it using vSphere Client. CentOS iso-image isn't on the server.

My task is to create two virtual machines on this host and install CentOS 5.4 on both. Then I have to configure network, so guest1 is accessible on IP B and guest2 is accessible on IP C.

Can anyone provide me a brief howto on this topic? I tried to find it, but found nothing.

vmware-esxi

3 Answers

  1. You have access to the vsphere client so you can use it to mount the ISO image and present it to the VM you are installing. I don't have access to vspehere at the moment but there is an icon when you select the VM you want to install that looks like a cd.

    If you click on it you will see an option to attach an iso image and present it as a cd-rom drive.

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  2. Best Answer

    If you're building two or more VMs from a single .ISO then I'd use the vSphere Client to copy the .ISO file to a host-accessible datastore and then point the VM's CD drives to that, it'll be much faster than linking to a remote file as it'll have direct access to the file.

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  3. I want to figure out some problems I faced performing the task.

    First, I had to mount .iso from Settings menu and put the tic "Connect on power on" - it was unchecked by default, and VM tried to load from net.

    Then, ESXi 4.0 has no clone fascility. You need to manually copy all the files from folder VM1 to VM2, cd VM2, right mouse click on .vmx file - 'Add to invertory'.

    Change the hostname and IP of the second VM - its all!

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