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ipkion
Contributor
Contributor

Installing VMWare ESXi 4 on a workstation box

Hello,

First of all let me say sorry for my English. I'll try to explain the best I can.

I need to run VMWare ESXi on a normal PC for creating two virtual machines (one Linux and one Windows). I suposed that will be easy as install vmware-server on Linux or something but I've found that it isn't.

When I boot the CD with the latest ISO avaible here I always get the same error:

Vmkctl.HostCtlException: Unable to load module /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/vmfs3: Failure

I have been looking for internet and some people said that it was a NIC problem so I figured out that was my motherboard Atheros 1Gbit problem and tried customizing the ESXi with http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/customize_oem_tgz.php but... nothing.

So I don't know what more to do. The specs of the computer are the next:

ASUS P8H67-V B3 Revision

Interl Core i7-2600, 3.40GHz

8GB DDR3 RAM (2x4 DIMM)

2 x 1TB HDD, with hardware RAID1

I've tried with RAID1 and SATA of and using as IDE and nothing.

Thank you in advance!    

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kfkernel
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

I assume that you are doing this for some kind of test / evaluation purpose. I have not run ESXi under VMware Server. But i often run it under VMware Workstation and it works great for test / demo purposes. VMware workstation is available as 30 day eval and the licesense fee is quite cheap i think. And if you buy you get a kick ass product Smiley Happy

http://www.vladan.fr/how-to-install-esxi-4-1-inside-of-vmware-workstation-7-1/

cheers

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ipkion
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

No, I don't want to run it under Server, Player or Workstation. I'm trying to install it directly to a box.

Thank you!

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kfkernel
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

Sorry i misread your question. Since i do not know exactly which Atheros card your motherboard has i do not know if the oem.tgz you mentioned is applicable. It seems dark for some of the atheros cards http://communities.vmware.com/message/1532599

Anyhow i have had problems myself with many on-board NICs, ending up with purchasing supported NICs instead. I would suggest that you try to disable the NIC in the BIOS and try to run the installation again. Maybe it is easier to add the drivers after ESXi installation has finnished. Assuming that you did not successfully inject the oem.tgz into the installation CD earlier i think this can work if you disable the NIC in BIOS.

3) After the install is complete, reboot the host with a bootable Linux CD
4) Modify oem.tgz on the Hypervisor1 partition
5) Reboot your host and ESXi will boot using the modified oem.tgz file

Otherwise i would suggest purchasing a supported NIC.

ipkion
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

Thank you first for your new reply. I tried all the Atheros on that page with oem.gz and no way.

I did what you said, I've disabled Atheros network on the BIOS and booted up the installation CD... and happens the same thing.

I view correct to buy a supported NIC, but seems now that the problem is not on the NIC?

Thank you!

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kfkernel
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I dont know really. It seems like NIC related issues can trigger the error message you reported,

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102995...

http://www.vmwareforum.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1288722811

same thing stated here, that the message is actually related to NIC errors. This post also provides further details regarding the oem.tgz injection http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=931

ipkion
Contributor
Contributor

I have found what is the card, on ASUS:

Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Ethernet Controller

I'm looking on the link you've sent me. It says that probably the error will show up with NO ethernet card so, probably we're right then. Smiley Happy

Updated:

So it seams that you can simply add your driver... but I've no driver, or oem.gz found for my AR8151. It was running on my Funtoo Linux (Gentoo fork) so the driver exists. This means I can possibly adapt or something?

Thank you!

El mensaje fue editado por: ipkion

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ipkion
Contributor
Contributor

I can buy a PCI NIC and install it, probably it will be easier but how I can know that is supported by default?

Thank you in advance!

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Getting a NIC which is either in the HCL or at least known as working (see e.g. Whitebox HCL) would be the most easiest way. Even though injecting a NIC driver could solve the issue now, you system could break with each update you apply. A PCI slot NIC which is known as working well and also is affordable is the Intel PRO/1000 GT.

The reason you get the error about vmfs3 is because the unique ID for the VMFS datastore is derived from the NIC's MAC address.

André

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ahalachev
Contributor
Contributor

Just found solution in the forum from the link below:

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3570

Many thanks to Varazir.

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