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winstontj
Contributor
Contributor

Alternative BIOS Choice?

Is there any way to use a different BIOS or modified BIOS in ESXi5?

Are there any programs that will clone an existing BIOS that I could then use to put into a VM?

The BIOS on some of our physical machines use Asset Tags as well as some other features designed for the brand of the PC or workstation (Dell/HP). Is there any way to clone that bios and use it in ESXi?

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cyclooctane
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Not that I am aware of.

Since the BIOS normally resides in NVRAM on the mother board of the server.

Hence I do not think cloning it into ESXI will work, since the hardware that the BIOS is designed to work with would not be avaliable, since the hardware is abstracted by ESXI.

Hence I do not think it can be done, however I would be very interested if someone made it work.

Regards

cyclooctane

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

To manage the physical BIOS you need the vendor utility.

For Dell, for example, just install OMSA on ESXi.

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
winstontj
Contributor
Contributor

Regarding ESXi's BIOS - it isn't bad per se, but I'd like it to have a few more features - i'm probably approaching it from the wrong angle though. Probably best to edit admin & HW rights, etc. in vCenter or vServer vs. at the BIOS level?

Have some strict corporate security policies that I'm trying to sort through and when running the OS directly on hardware it has been easiest to set a BIOS admin password and restrict hardware settings from the BIOS vs. messing around with the registry, etc.

I'm less interested in the OEM ISO images activating through the BIOS as we'll move to a volume license format on the VMs but the security policies still need to be implimented. Things like enabling and disabling USB ports/drives (or enable USB support but disable mass storage drives so cell phones charge and mouse/keyboards work but flash drives don't get picked up) is the major concern. There are ways to do this at the thin client but thats a bit messy as it means managing all the individual devices vs. a centrally managed solution.

I'm not sure if this is possible or how many people have gone through this before - when I've spoken to vendors about this their response is that the project is pretty "cutting edge" which I find a bit hard to believe - but I suppose anything is possible.

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cyclooctane
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Most of the permissions for VMs, ranging from power on / off to even finer controles like adding USB devices and alike are all managed by roles in Vcenter.

On the USB issue, under the roles setting in Vcenter.

Right click a role (or make a new one) and under the "virtual machine" segment and unselect "Host USB Device"

This will prevent all uses of that role from connecting a USB device to the server, and then linking it to a VM.

While allowing everyone who has that permission to link the USB devices.

Each role is linked to a group in active directory, or to a list of local users.

I hope this helps

Regards

Cyclooctane