Customising VMware ESXi ISO - Adding Legacy Network Adapters

Part of my objective to understand VMware better is upgrading my lab hosts to a current version of ESXi, I've chosen 6.5 because it's the latest version and my lab is a long way away from a production environment so I don't have to worry about using a proven and stable release.

The snag I have is that one of my servers is a "white box" microserver, a Shuttle DS81, a great little box designed for digital signage, but the built-in Network Card is a Realtek 8111G, which is unsupported by VMware. This stops ESXi 6.x onwards being installed on the device. Error message shown below:

The way round this is customising your ESXi ISO image before installing it, adding the necessary drivers. Now this isn't a hack perse, because VMware actually gives you a tool in vCenter to do this, called the Image Builder, however I suspect this would affect your support from VMware because you are using unsupported hardware. I'm not fussed because this is a lab to enhance my learning, plus it's a great little box, very low power, reasonable spec (4 CPU, 16GB RAM), so there's no way I'm not using it.
VMware Image Builder:
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/11/getting-started-new-image-builder-gui-vsphere-6-5.html

Now I didn't actually use the image builder to customise the ISO files, I did give it a quick go but it is not immediately intuative for a complete novice.

There are 2 other ways (that I have found) to customise the ESXi ISO:

• ESXi-Customiser
• ESXi-Customiser-PS

The ESXi-Customiser is what I used, it's not an official VMware product, and has actually been suceeded by the ESXi-Customiser-PS but I found it so simple and easy to use, and works perfectly for ESXi 5.5, 6.0 and 6.5:

https://www.v-front.de/p/esxi-customizer.html

Just one note, I couldn't get this to work on windows 10, I had to use a win7 machine.

The ESXi-Customiser-PS (power shell), actually looks like it's semi easy to use as well but I'm a novice and my version of windows 10 said it couldn't run powershell scripts, so instead of getting side tracked learning about windows power shell (I'm concentrating on VMware, one thing at a time!), I decided to try the easy way, a 3 click, the ESXi-Customiser (above).

For anyone having the same issues with the Realtek 8111G NIC, the drivers I used were the 8168 driver pack, this page shows you how and provides a mirror:

http://www.computertechblog.com/adding-realtek-r8168-driver-to-an-esxi-6-0-iso/

vCenter License Administration; Apply the license! - Simple when you know

Ok, so this is actually a very simple topic / activity but it took me, a VMware rookie, a little while to suss out so I have decided to do a little blog post and perhaps it'll save someone some time in the future, or maybe just give me a giggle in a few years when I look back at this knowing more than I currently do.

Once you've installed your vCenter (vCSA) instance you will have the trial license installed with 60 days ticking down on the clock. Similarly, when you add a ESXi host into your vCenter inventory you will have an evaluation license, 60 days, ticking down. The free license which you get from VMware will not work when connecting the ESXi host to the vCenter server.

Licenses are installed in the licensing section, oddly enough!, but they don't actually take affect until you assign the license to one of your assets (the ESXi hosts or the vCenter Server itself). You can't just add the licenses and expect it to work, the added licenses are put into a pool, where they can then be assigned to an asset.

The licences section can be found here (in the vSphere Web Client):
Administration > Licensing > Licenses

There are 3 tabs in the pane, Licenses, Products and Assets. Licenses is where you add your licenses keys and then, once added, navigate to the assets tab, which shows your vCenter server and ESXi hosts, where you can then right click and assign a license to each of the hosts.

VMware vCenter vCSA Installation stuck at 80% Installing RPM

Installing vCenter 6-5 using the vCSA has been causing me a few issues, running through the GUI installation it kept getting stuck at 80% - installing RPM.

Doing a little googling this seems to happen semi-regularly when there is an issue with the installation.

My issue seemed to be that I was trying to install the vCenter vCSA on an ESXi which was version 5.5. Once I'd upgraded to 6.5 it seemed to install just fine.

If you are getting the same error it's worth checking the compatibility information:

https://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php

https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

The only other thing which I want to mention in case there is any connection, I also changed the 'system name' field to a FQDN, where previously I used an IP address.

For a link to an easy installation step-by-step for vCSA 6-5 see the below link:

https://www.tech-coffee.net/step-by-step-deploy-vcenter-server-appliance-vcsa-6-5/

honerable mention:

https://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/procedure/vmware-vsphere-6-deploy-and-configure-vcenter-server-appliance-vcsa