VMware ESX Server 3 on Desktop systems

[ru_Prasaad]

Hello team,

I would like to install vmware ESX server 3 for practice on a Desktop computer with SATA RAID, Please help me by answering following questions.

1) Mother board, RAID and LAN card type / model

2) Can Virtual Machines be created on SATA disks with RAID,

3) Installation recommendatioins / guide lines.

Thaks in advance..

[oreeh]

FYI: this thread has been moved to the VMware Infrastructure Installation and Upgrade forum.

Oliver

VMTN User Moderator

[Dave_Mishchenko]

>1) Mother board, RAID and LAN card type / model

I'd suggest an ASUS P5M2/SAS - it has an integrated LSI SCSI controller which will allow you to use SATA drives and 2 onboard NICs.

>2) Can Virtual Machines be created on SATA disks with RAID,

No - if you want to use SATA drives, you'll need an SATA RAID controller (see first link below) that is very close to a SCSI model that ESX supports. ESX won't recognize drives attached to a generic SATA controller.

You might also consider picking up an older server off of eBay. I use IBM x335 servers which work fine with 3.0.2 and you can get them for around $300 US. You can also get similar Dell / HP models.

Whiteboxes

SATA controllers - http://vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=sata_faq

Whitebox on ASUS P5M2 - http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=67

Other links.

Hardware recommendations to build a cheap ESX server - http://www.vmweekly.com/articles/hardware_recommendations_to_build_cheap_esx_server/1/

White box/Home ESX system - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=620124

ESX on non-supported hardware to learn with - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=77560

From: http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Links.html

[admin]

If it's just for testing/practice, you could virtualise your ESX server under VMware Workstation, takes all the hardware compatibilities worries away. The only real requirement is that you have an IntelVT/AMD-V enabled processor, which all of the fairly recent ones are anyway.

Here's a guide on how to configure it.

http://www.xtravirt.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=75&func=fileinfo&id=11

[ru_Prasaad]

Hello mittell / team,

Thanks you so much for your support and quick response. I have followed the step-by-step instrictions given in the Xtravirt's white paper "Install and run VMware ESX3 on VMware Workstation 6 ". I am getting 2 errors, first one during the booting and second one after logging on with root user name and password. And whenever i am running any commands, it is saying "vmkernal is not loaded". I am copying and also attaching the errors here.

Please help me to fix the issue. Thaks in advance.

1) Error during booting

Starting VMware VMKernel autherization daemon Warning : Oct 15 16:19:33.517 error : Md5 signature Mismatch. Running vmkernek built on Unknown (vs vmkload_app built on Jul 26 2007 14:09:47).

2) Error after login with root

VMware ESX server 3 ( Dali)

kernel 2.4.21.47.0.1.ELvmnix on i686

esx-3 login: root

Password :

Last loging:Mon Oct 15:15:55 on tty1

ALERT :

Service console is running in fallback Mode. Critical VMkernel component(s) failed to load. Please file a problem report including output of vm-support.

#

[Dave_Mishchenko]

If you take a look at the 4th post here: http://communities.vmware.com/message/732683;jsessionid=0CC5A5BA88EC1B202BCDD72A431DFE96 you may need to add more memory to the VM. You'll want to grant at least 512 MB to the VM and you'll want to have around 1 GB of physical memory in the PC running this.

[ru_Prasaad]

Hello team,

After increasing the memory, esx is running without any trouble. Performance is also good. Thank you so much for you support.