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czql5v
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ESXi first timer

Hi All,

I suspect that this question has been asked before, I am new to this community and its the first time I have posted, please excuse any Faux Pas.

The question I have is can I install 2 ESXi hosts on one physical machine, and if so how would I achieve this?

Presently I have an HP G5 server 64 bit, 8gig of RAM. I would like to install 2 ESXi hosts on this machine so that I am able to test and learn etc. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Regards.

Flinty.

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Datto
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Just a note -- with a G5 you may have VT capability but you might not have EPT capability. If true, that means once you get your two ESXi 5.x hosts installed and running as VMs, you might only be able to then run 32 bit VMs on those nested ESXi 5.x VMs. If you have/had EPT capability you'd be able to run 64 bit VMs on the nested ESXi 5.1 VMs.

Probably the first thing to do is to determine for sure whether you have EPT capability or not (extended page tables) and whether you need to run 64 bit VMs on those nested ESXi 5.1 VMs -- EPT will also give you much better speed than not having it. Normally in the Intel server arena, you'd need to have Nehalem family of CPUs or better to have EPT capability.

Datto

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TomHowarth
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I am moving this post to the section on Nested Virtualisation.

but in answer to your question, yes you can.  what you would doe is install a base ESXi, then followed by two nested ESXi,  you would user the second two guest instances to do your playing.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
weinstein5
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Welcome to the Community - if you are using this as a learning platform - I would us one os the hosted products - like WOrkstation or Player and then create virtual maxines in thay envioronment for ESXi  there are a number of threads in the communities discussing this -

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czql5v
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Thanks very much will look into this 

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Datto
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Just a note -- with a G5 you may have VT capability but you might not have EPT capability. If true, that means once you get your two ESXi 5.x hosts installed and running as VMs, you might only be able to then run 32 bit VMs on those nested ESXi 5.x VMs. If you have/had EPT capability you'd be able to run 64 bit VMs on the nested ESXi 5.1 VMs.

Probably the first thing to do is to determine for sure whether you have EPT capability or not (extended page tables) and whether you need to run 64 bit VMs on those nested ESXi 5.1 VMs -- EPT will also give you much better speed than not having it. Normally in the Intel server arena, you'd need to have Nehalem family of CPUs or better to have EPT capability.

Datto

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