A few post back, I wrote about converting real physical Macintoshes into VM (Virtual Machine) guests. Today, I am going to blog about my first attempt of installing VMware ESXi 5 hypervisor Virtualization server on a 2009 Apple Xserve 3,1. This was the last Xserve before Apple discontinued the line.
The purpose of this exercise is to see if I can recycle some old Xserve to hosts and consolidate older Mac OSX servers running Quicktime and Indesign services.
Installation was a breeze. I had an ISO and hit the "c" key at boot and selected the CDROM. Installing ESXi 5 was no different than installing it on a Dell. I picked a 8GB USB stick and installed everything onto a bootable USB stick. Once prompted to reboot, I had to hit the option key to choose the USB stick which happened to be properly EFI made.
I then configured my IP and logged into the Xserve through the VMware view client. I couldn't format one of the disks from the Xserve's SAS bay. VMware recognizes and it probably has some baked Apple firmware on it. I'll try with a different disk later. However, I was able to mount iSCSI and NFS shares to test.
I was able to load up my Linux and Windows VMs with no hassle. Getting a OSX guest will take me some time to figure out. I converted a Fusion guest with the ovftool but was not able to install my guests. I will play with it more and report back.
Right now my Xserve only has 6GB of RAM so I'll need to max that out and try adding eSATA or SAS storage to the ESXi build. My Xserve has an internal 128GB boot SSD so I may try re-installing on that or create a datastore on it.
thanks for this post. i am going to try to repurpose my xserve 3,1 and try this out also at it has been collecting dust for a couple of years now. hopefully the install will go ok. did you ever get to format the other drives?
ReplyDeleteAny updates on this? It's been a few months and no comments. Would appreciate any new info you may have.
ReplyDeleteI'm running it with no problems using just the onboard drives. I haven't tried it with any external storage yet.
DeleteI have a new How-To Post on virtualizing macs: http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.com/2014/02/vmware-esxi-xserve-and-virtualizing.html
DeleteI am trying to get ESXi 5.1 on my old XServe 3,1. I burned the iso to a DVD+R, and using the C option at boot trying to boot from disc - I get nothing but the question mark on screen. Any idea what my issue is? This xserve has the built in 128GB SSD btw, so I'm hoping I can store some of my more disk intensive VM's to that, or use it as a swap disk or something. Suggestions on that if you have them? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDo you have a faulty cd-rom. try it with a USB cd-rom. Once you get booted, you should install onto a bootable USB stick.
DeleteExcellent! I was able to get the ISO working finally, I must have had a bad burn...in any case, I can now install ESXi 5.1 Update 2, and I know you say to install it onto a bootable USB stick, but why would I not install it to the 128GB SSD? I know I don't need any where near 128GB for ESXi install, but couldn't I still use another partition on the SSD for either swap or maybe 1 of the VM guests that needs to be super fast? Thoughts on that? Just wanna strategize before I just start plowing ahead with all my VM's and such. Thanks a ton!
ReplyDeleteUSB install is standard practice as the OS doesn't take that much space. It loads into memory so it doesn't use much read/writes to the drive. Secondly, if the OS partition tanks, you don't take the data store down with you. You can even make multiple USB sticks for back-ups, redundancy, failover.
DeleteOkay, fair enough, I'll go buy a little 2GB USB stick and use that, no need to dedicate one my larger 16GB sticks for such a small footprint, right? Also, do you know what the maximum RAM is in the XServe 3,1 that can be used with the free version of ESXi 5.1? Is it different if I decide later to upgrade to 5.5? I'm considering a RAM upgrade from the measly 10GB in my XServe right now and want to know what the maximum allowed is for ESXi to address. Thanks
Delete32GB RAM is the limit for free ESXi. You should get a 4GB USB stick.
ReplyDeleteOk, fair enough. For some reason, I thought it was 48GB on an XServe...in fact, it looks like it says so on the HCL on VMware's site. For 5.1U2, which is officially supported, 48GB is listed as the limit.
ReplyDeleteESXI 5.1 licensing is free up to 32GB of physical ram.
DeleteESXi5.5 has no limit but that opens up a new can of worms.
Ahh interesting. I wonder how much a paid license for ESXi would be, probably very expensive. I'll check into it. Not sure my XServe can be upgraded to 5.5 anyway, it certainly is not listed as 'supported' past 5.1.
ReplyDeleteWhat are the main limitations (or 'new can of worms') to running ESXi 5.5 that you speak of?
ReplyDeleteThe Standard vSphere Client no longer supports most features. The best parts of it relies on vCenter which isn't free. http://www.tinkertry.com/best-parts-of-vmwares-esxi-5-5-free-hypervisor-rely-on-vcenter-which-isnt-free-uh-oh/ and http://thehomeserverblog.com/home-servers/esxi-5-5-free-hypervisor-will-home-labs-survive/
DeleteOkay, so I've got 5.1 working now - my memory settings and host cache are set up to use the SSD in my XServe as a giant host cache (and swap) disk, should be high performing. The problem I'm having now is setting up my vkernel network adapter(s) properly to use iSCSI to my SAN - all of my VM's will live on the SAN via iSCSI. I have the SAN part working fine with a LUN assigned and all, but I need to know how to map the 2 physical NIC's in the XServe to form a vswitch or something. Can you show me your Networking settings screenshots in VSphere? I basically just want a simple IP address to be used for iSCSI initiation, and this IP is on the same subnet as my management IP for Vsphere. I can do NIC teaming because my physical switch supports it, and so does my SAN, but I don't NEED to. Can you share your networking settings in vsphere? Thanks again! I'm almost there to mounting storage and creating VM's!
ReplyDelete