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VMware Tools for CentOS 8 aarch64 on ESXi-Arm

VMware Tools is a set of utilities and drivers that improve the performance and management of your Virtual Machines. They are essential when running VMs on ESXi. With the recently released ESXi Arm Edition Fling, you want to make sure that you have them installed.

CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) is a Linux distribution that provides a free, community-supported computing platform functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Unfortunately, a compiled version of open-vm-tools for aarch64 is not available for many common Guest Operating Systems, so you have to compile them from VMwares Repository at GitHub.

This article explains how to compile open-vm-tools for CentOS 8 aarch64.

Read More »VMware Tools for CentOS 8 aarch64 on ESXi-Arm

ESXi on Raspberry Pi - Scripted Installation with Kickstart

In the last article, I've explained how to automate the preparation that is required to install ESXi on a Raspberry Pi using the ESXi on ARM Fling. This article covers the last step, the ESXi installation itself.

I'm covering 2 installation examples:

  • Basic installation, resulting in an ESXi with DHCP enabled
  • Advanced installation including static IP address, Datastore, NTP, SSH key, and SSH enabled.

I highly recommend using the second example as the Pi needs an NTP Server to run with the correct time after reboots. You can just remove any configuration snippets that you don't need.

Read More »ESXi on Raspberry Pi - Scripted Installation with Kickstart

ESXi on RPi - Create EEPROM and Firmware SD Card with PowerShell

The installation of ESXi on a Raspberry Pi using the ESXi on ARM Fling basically involves 3 steps:

  1. Patch RPi EEPROM to the latest version using an SD card. You can reuse the SD card in Step 2.
  2. Write RPi Firmware and EFI to an SD Card. This is the bootloader for ESXi and needs to remain in your RPis SD slot, even after ESXi installation.
  3. Install ESXi on ARM using a USB flash drive (This step is identical to x86 Hardware)

I've tried to make this sprocess unattended so I've created two PowerShell functions that automate Step 1 and 2.

Read More »ESXi on RPi - Create EEPROM and Firmware SD Card with PowerShell

ESXi on Raspberry Pi - Quick way to update EEPROM

Step 3.2 from the official ESXi on ARM Fling guide describes the installation of Raspberry Pi Os just for the purpose of checking that the EEPROM is up-to-date. If you do not have a preinstalled Raspberry Pi Os, there is a quick alternative that allows you to speed up this step.

Instead of using Raspberry Pi Os to update the EEPROM you can use the Raspberry Pi 4 EEPROM boot recovery tool to get the latest version installed in less than 10 seconds.

There are two options to work with the recovery tool:

Read More »ESXi on Raspberry Pi - Quick way to update EEPROM

Playing Doom with VMware ESXi on Arm Fling running on Raspberry Pi

Yesterday I posted a screenshot on Twitter showing Doom that runs on top of the ESXi on ARM Fling, installed on a Raspberry Pi. I got a few requests to share instructions, so here is a quick article. It's not that complicated as there isn't much of a difference compared to running Doom on standard Linux. However, I think it's a good point to get started with your first ARM64 VM on running on top of ESXi.

Read More »Playing Doom with VMware ESXi on Arm Fling running on Raspberry Pi

iPerf3 for ESXi on ARM Fling

When you try to run iPerf3 on ESXi Arm Edition, the following message is displayed:

[root@esxipi1:~] /usr/lib/vmware/vsan/bin/iperf3
/usr/lib/vmware/vsan/bin/iperf3: line 2: syntax error: unexpected "("

The version of iPerf3 that comes with the Fling is not compiled for arm64. The solution is simple, just use an iPerf3 version + library that is compiled for arm64. If you don't want to compile it yourself, feel free to take this:Read More »iPerf3 for ESXi on ARM Fling