How to Install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.5

Objective: A step by step guide to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi on an Intel Xeon processor based system using a USB flash drive.

Pre-Requisites:- 

1. Create an installable media (I used a USB flash drive as explained in my other post) to install VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi 5.5. 

 2. A heavy duty system to host VMware vSphere Hypervisor ESXi and should be connected to your network so you can access it from a remote system.

Note: I used a Dell T7400 Workstation that has 64 bit Dual Intel Xeon Quad Core processor with 8 GB of memory.

Pre-Installation Tasks:

1)      Make sure that USB Device is selected in the host system’s BIOS (I disabled the rest and only enabled USB device):-

2)      Enable Virtualization at hardware level if your system is capable of (shown below is Intel Xeon X5472 3Ghz Quad processor). Make below changes, save and exit to let the system boot using the USB flash drive.

Installation

3)      Boot from USB flash drive, hit enter or let it boot automatically

4)      Installation begins

5)      Hit Enter to continue installation:-

 

6)      Hit F11 to accept the license agreement and continue:-

7)      Select the storage device (hard disk) where you want to install ESXi:-

8)      Select the keyboard layout:-

9)      Assign and confirm root password:-

10)      Confirm the install

11)   Install on progress:-

12)   Installation is complete, remove the USB flash drive that was used for install and hit Enter to reboot:-

13)   Rebooting:-

14)   Now right at the beginning of reboot, hit F2 to enter into BIOS setup and change the boot sequence to include the hard drive where we just installed ESXi. Save and exit and let the system restart.

15)   ESXi is starting up:-

 16)   ESXi is up now:-

Configuration / Customization:

 17)   Hit F2 to customize system which will ask you to log into the system:-

-          Use Static IP (instead of DHCP by default)

-          Disable IPv6

-          Provide a custom hostname

18)   Scroll down to Configure Management Network and hit enter:-

19)   Scroll down to IP Configuration and hit enter:-

20)   Select the static IP address and key in the IP address you want:-

21)   Once complete, you will see the IP configuration has turned from “Automatic” to “Manual”:-

 22)   Now disable IPv6 (it is enabled by default):-

 23)   Scrolling down to “DNS Configuration” to change the Hostname:- 

 24)   Hostname is changed:-

25)   Reboot to make the changes come to effect:-

 26)   System is coming up:-

 27)   ESXi install and configuration is complete and ready to use:

 

Next step is to Install VMware vSphere Client 5.5 on a separate machine.