This is a refresh of last month's article, Download ESXi 5.5 Update 1 and the other vSphere pieces to get your home lab started, with new download links for the Heartbleed related vCenter Update 1a release that arrived today, April 19, 2014. It is a work in progress, and will updated frequently, throughout the next few days, as I test and retest the links and procedures. The hypervisor itself (the first download) appears to be unchanged, the same 5.5 Update 1 (not 1a) released back on Mar 11 2014. It appears the only thing that has changed has been a patch to SSL certificates to address Heartbleed, as described in the release notes:
esxi 5.0 update 1 iso download
Vulnerability in OpenSSL third party library **The OpenSSL library is updated to version openssl-1.0.1g to resolve the Heartbleed issue. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2014-0160 to this issue. Details on this vulnerability can be found in VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2014-0004.
This is a home-lab-centric article, with narrow scope. Get you started by getting you past bumps in the road that have steered others off course. The Windows-based vCenter Server download (vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1a Installation Package) that I'm not covering here is considerably more complex and time consuming to set up (you need to provide your own database, like SQL Server), and is overkill for most home labs. Now that VCSA (VMware vCenter Server Appliance) has come so far in scale and capabilities, and finally simple to deploy on a home network, it's likely better suited for your home lab use too. Especially if simplicity is your goal. Yes, VCSA is based on SuSE Linux. But this appliance is largely pre-configured by VMware for you. You don't need to know Linux at all to configure and use it using mostly just your browser, as I demonstrate on this 5.5 (non-Update 1) video here. See also configuration maximums.
You'll have plenty of time to read during the download of the 3 needed files, which total about 2.5 GB in all. I detail the links below, followed by a video demonstrating the fastest way to get those downloads completed.
The goal is to get the first download going, the version of ESXi 5.5 Update 1, aka, hypervisor, intended for new installs or upgrades, that ANYBODY can access. To get it, the simplest option is for me to show you the exact sequence of screens to get through, including "Register" for a new account (an optional first step). This way, especially after watching the video below, you'll be convinced that this procedure will work for ALL VMware-curious folks, even those who have never had a free my.vmware.com account before. That's right, no prerequisites, partner requirements, license key requests. Just an ISO you can download right away, for a 60 day trial. During that trial, assuming you don't enter any license key, you'll have access to all the enterprise features. This is a great way to kick the tires, and get to know what vSphere 5.5 Update 1 is capable of. Right in your lab, including the fun stuff like vMotion, Storage vMotion, and more. And if you do get a license keys, just enter them before 60 days are up, and you're all set, no re-install of ESXi or vCenter appliance will be needed. Remember, even if your keys do expire, your VMs are still on your datastores. And you can always rebuild. As always, adhering to EULAs and licensing restrictions are your responsibility. Disclaimers out of the way, let's get started!
If you run into troubles with or chose the 'Create an Account' tab to make a new account, no billing questions will be asked. No matter how you log in, all these downloads listed below are available to you, for free. Licensing is a separate issue.
With my rated as 150Mbps down and 30Mbps up internet connection, I can actually get full use of that pipe (seen at right, and in video below), only if I use DLM. I managed to finish all 3 downloads, that's 2.41GB in all, in under 5 minutes. And if I skip the DLM? Then it's "just" 26Mbps for me. I know, boo hoo.
Scroll down, and there it is:ESXi 5.5 ISO image (Includes VMware Tools)2014-03-11 5.5.0 U1 328 MB isoVMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.5.0.update01-1623387.x86_64.iso
If you don't see this, your download may work, but it'll be slow. You can adjust your Java setting to fix this. Press your Windows key, type Java, select 'Configure Java', choose the 'Security' tab, and turn on 'Enable Java content in the browser' then click 'Apply'. You can turn it right back off again when done, and yes, there are good security reasons why you might want to do so. This easy browser integration on/off capability arrived in Java 7 Update 10, which has the checkbox set to off by default.
You still need this C# Windows 32 bit program to initially configure your ESXi host, and to deploy the appliance ("File, Deploy OVF Template"), but after that, not so much. This is the same exact link to the actual EXE from VMware's site that you get when you click on the "Download vSphere Client" button upon pointing your browser straight to your ESXi host later on, but why not get this 358MB download over with now?
How, exactly? I will be creating an updated, streamlined, step-by-step 5.5 Update 1 installation and configuration guide, with new video, right here at TinkerTry soon. But worry not, it'll be very much like the original, comprehensive hit, Build your own VMware vSphere 5.5 Datacenter with ESXi and VCSA, so you can get started right away, since this is just a relatively minor update.
ESXi 5.1 Update 1 was just released by VMware and similar to the ESXi 5.0 Update 2 release last year, the tg3 (Broadcom) driver has now been updated to 3.123b.v50.1 which is required to support network connectivity on the Apple Mac Mini's. Prior to this, to install ESXi on an Apple Mac Mini, users were required to build a custom ISO that included the updated tg3 driver and I am happy to say this is no long necessary! In addition, having the latest driver also provides out of the box support for the Thunderbolt ethernet adapter which is great if you are looking to add an additional ethernet connection to the Apple Mac Mini.
Note: From my understanding, some of these issues have been fixed but just did not make it in time for the Update 1 release. I'm hoping that we will be able to get most of these fixed in a future patch or update. This is actually pretty awesome, given that this is NOT SUPPORTED by VMware, but engineers are still willing to help the community out!
This release contains general and security-only bulletins. Security-only bulletins are applicable to new security fixes only. No new bug fixes are included, but bug fixes from earlier patch and update releases are included. If the installation of all new security and bug fixes is required, you must apply all bulletins in this release. In some cases, the general release bulletin will supersede the security-only bulletin. This is not an issue as the general release bulletin contains both the new security and bug fixes. The security-only bulletins are identified by bulletin IDs that end in "SG". For information on patch and update classification, see KB 2014447. For more information about the individual bulletins, see the My VMware page and the Resolved Issues section.
If you manually delete the support bundle folder of a virtual machine downloaded in the /scratch/downloads directory of an ESXi host, the hostd service might fail. The failure occurs when hostd automatically tries to delete folders in the /scratch/downloads directory one hour after the files are created.
A VMFS6 datastore might report that it is out of space incorrectly, due to stale cache entries. Space allocation reports are corrected with the automatic updates of the cache entries, but this fix prevents the error even before an update.
The Windows pre-Vista iso image for VMware Tools is no longer packaged with ESXi. The Windows pre-Vista ISO image is available for download by users who require it. For download information, see the Product Download page.
Workaround: Before upgrading Windows vCenter Server 6.0.x or 6.5.x to vCenter Server 6.7, upgrade the ESXi 5.5.x with the non-ASCII or high-ASCII named host profiles to ESXi 6.0.x or 6.5.x, then update the host profile from the upgraded host by clicking Copy setting from the hosts.
This message is generated when the vCenter Server Appliance searches for and fails to find a patch or update. No functionality is impacted by this issue. This issue will be resolved with the release of the first patch for vSphere 6.7. 2ff7e9595c
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