It's now possible to manage standalone ESXi hosts with not only the Windows vSphere Client or vCenter, but with a web interface for ESXi !
Jan 16, 2015.
- Sep 01, 2020.
- VMware vSphere ESX 6.7 No network adapters were detected. Either no network adaptters are physically connected to the system. Typical scenario, you download the VMware ISO file, then you burn to USB and in your mind you're thinking, it will take me few minutes to install and configure the system and then I will be doing other stuff.
VMware Labs is where the latest tools (known as Flings) are being released for early feedback. https://mindwicarmatch1981.mystrikingly.com/blog/karaoketube-1-7. One of these Flings is an embedded web interface for ESXi hosts written in HTML and JavaScript known as the ESXi Embedded Host Client.
Current features include:
- VM operations (Power on, off, reset, suspend, etc).
- Creating a new VM, from scratch or from OVF/OVA (limited OVA support)
- Configuring NTP on a host
- Displaying summaries, events, tasks and notifications/alerts
- Providing a console to VMs
- Configuring host networking
- Configuring host advanced settings
- Configuring host services
https://heretfile715.weebly.com/no-bonus-slots.html. There are some issues too at the moment:
- On ESXi hosts which are assigned a VMware vSphere Hypervisor license, all modification operations will fail silently. We are working on a solution to this issue.
- On ESXi hosts which have a sub-domain name with large, shared cookies a web console session may fail to initialize. A workaround is to clear cookies or run the host client in an incognito-type window.
- For ESXi 5.5U2 and prior, and ESXi 6.0 hosts upgraded from any 5.5U2 or prior version, you will get a 503 error returned after visiting
https:///ui/. To resolve this issue, please remove the line starting with /ui from /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/endpoints.conf and restart rhttpproxy with /etc/init.d/rhttpproxy restart - For ESXi 5.5 hosts, in-browser consoles are not supported. Please use VMRC to access guest VM consoles.
- For ESXi 5.5U2 and prior hosts, you must ensure to append a trailing / (forward slash) to the URL after /ui. The URL must be
https:///ui/ - For some Windows guests, send Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work.
The first issue is a real killer. Only hosts running the evaluation license can perform power operations at the moment. Hopefully the next update fixes this as the evaluation license only lasts 60 days.
Installation
Everything you need to know can be found on the official Fling page. But to summarise:
Installing it over the Internet
- SSH into your ESXi host
- Run the command
Installing it from a local file
- Download the VIB file
- SSH into your ESXi host
- Copy the VIB file to /tmp/
- Run the command
Making sure you include the full path name to the file or else installation will fail
Try it out
If the VIB installation completes successfully, you should now be able to navigate a web browser to https:///ui and the login page should be displayed.
Login with your usually ESXi credentials and try it out. File juicer 4 83.
Verdict
- I find the UI very similar to vCenter but with a few modifications that make it a lot lighter.
- I like how the console can be opened within the current window, in a new window or in VMRC.
- I do not like how clicking on the image of the console automatically opens it in the current window. Options should be provided like above.
- Almost everything I would want, even the advanced features are available. The only issue is not everything is fully working like enabling/disabling SSH
Overall I'd have to say it is very good start to what VMware are aiming for. The web interface for ESXi is very fast and most things that people would want to perform are covered. The installation was simple and accessing it even more so. No lengthy setups or configurations, it just works.
Summary
Requirements
Instructions
Changelog
Comments369
Bugs8
USB has become one the most widely adopted connection type in the world & USB network adapters are also popular among Edge computing platforms. In some platforms, there is either limited or no PCI/PCIe slots for I/O expansion & in some cases, an Ethernet port is not even available. Another advantage of a USB-based network adapter is that it can be hot-plugged into an system without a reboot which means no impact to the workload, same is true for hot-remove.
This Fling supports the most popular USB network adapter chipsets found in the market. The ASIX USB 2.0 gigabit network ASIX88178a, ASIX USB 3.0 gigabit network ASIX88179, Realtek USB 3.0 gigabit network RTL8152/RTL8153 and Aquantia AQC111U. These are relatively inexpensive devices that many of our existing vSphere customers are already using and are familiar with.
- VMware ESXi 6.5, 6.7 & 7.0
| Vendor | Chipset | VendorID | ProductID |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQUANTIA | AQC111U | 0xe05a | 0x20f4 |
| AQUANTIA | Aquantia Pacific | 0x2eca | 0xc101 |
| ASIX | AX88179 | 0x0b95 | 0x1790 |
| ASIX | AX88178a | 0x0b95 | 0x178a |
| CISCO LINKSYS | RTL8153 | 0x13b1 | 0x0041 |
| DLINK | AX88179 | 0x2001 | 0x4a00 |
| INSYDE SOFTWARE CORP | Insyde Software Corp. | 0x0b1f | 0x03ee |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x3062 |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x720a |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x3069 |
| LENOVO | AX88179 | 0x17ef | 0x304b |
| LENOVO | RTL8153 | 0x17ef | 0x7205 |
| NVIDIA | RTL8153 | 0x0955 | 0x09ff |
| REALTEK | RTL8153 | 0x045e | 0x07c6 |
| REALTEK | RTL8152 | 0x0bda | 0x8152 |
| REALTEK | RTL8153 | 0x0bda | 0x8153 |
| REALTEK | RTL8156 | 0x0bda | 0x8156 |
| SITECOMEU | AX88179 | 0x0df6 | 0x0072 |
| SUPERMICRO | Supermicro computer Inc | 0x15d9 | 0x1b83 |
| TP-LINK | RTL8153 | 0x2357 | 0x0601 |
| TRENDNET | AQC111U | 0xe05a | 0x20f4 |
Step 1 - Download the ZIP file for the specific version of your ESXi host and upload to ESXi host using SCP or Datastore Browser
Step 2 - Place the ESXi host into Maintenance Mode using the vSphere UI or CLI (e.g. esxcli system maintenanceMode set -e true)
Step 3 - Install the Offline Bundle (6.5/6.7) or Component (7.0)
Run the following command on ESXi Shell to install Offline Bundle (6.5/6.7):
Run the following command on ESXi Shell to install Component (7.0):
Step 4 - Plug-in the USB NIC and reboot for the change to go into effect. Once the host has rebooted, ESXi should automatically pickup and claim the USB NIC (e.g. vusb0)
Note: Secure Boot can not be enabled if you decide to use the USB NIC as your primary NIC for Management Network. Since the settings do not persist, you will need to create a startup script (see instructions below for more details details) and this is not allowed when Secure Boot is enabled. If USB NIC is not your primary NIC for the Management Network, then you do not have to disable Secure Boot
Intel NUC 10 (Frost Canyon) Considerations
The built-in Intel NIC is not automatically recognized by ESXi and requires an updated ne1000 driver which can be found here. You will need to create a custom ESXi ISO that contains this driver and install ESXi prior to installing the USB Native Driver ESXi Fling.Persisting USB NIC Bindings
Currently there is a limitation in ESXi where USB NIC bindings are picked up much later in the boot process and to ensure settings are preserved upon a reboot, the following needs to be added to /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh based on your configurations.Note: The vusbX vmkernel interface may not show up in either ESXi Embedded Host Client and/or vSphere HTML5 UI, this does not mean there is an issue. ESXi was never designed to support USB-based NICs for Management Network and the UI may not properly detect these devices when using the UI. It is recommended to use the ESXi Shell for any operations requiring configuration of vusbX devices.
Persisting VMkernel to USB NIC mappings
When multiple USB NICs are connected, it is possible that the mapping between vmkX to physical MAC Address of the USB NIC could random change upon rebooting ESXi. To ensure this does not happen, customers can specify the mapping by adding custom parameter to USB NIC module.Here is an example where we are mapping vusb0 to 70:88:6b:85:c0:53 and vusb1 to 58:ef:68:7f:2b:f7:
- Add support for Aquantia and Trendnet AQC111U (0xe05a:0x20f4) (see Requirements page for more details)
- Add support for Realtek RTL8153 (0x045e:0x07c6) (see Requirements page for more details)
- Add support for Realtek RTL8156 (0x0bda:0x8156) (see Requirements page for more details)
- Support for persistent VMkernel to USB NIC MAC Address mappings (see Instructions tab for details)
- Simplified USB NIC persistency (see Instructions tab for details)
- Resolved link speed issue for RTL8153 chipsets
Note 2: This will be the last release which will include support for ESXi 6.5
ESXi700-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39035884-component-16770668.zip
ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39203948-offline_bundle-16780994.zip
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-39176435-offline_bundle-16775917.zip
Add Network Drivers To Esxi 6 Web Access
April 6, 2020 - v1.5- Added support for ESXi 7.0
ESXi700-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-34491022-component-15873236.zip
February 12, 2020 - v1.4
- Add SuperMicro/Insyde Software Corp USB Devices in the supported list
- Resolved invalid speed reporting for some quick devices by using the default speed
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-33268102-offline_bundle-15620342.zip
November 27, 2019 - v1.3
- Resolved USB device detection issue on Intel XHCI controller
- Resolved packet record issue for ASIX USB network adapters
Install Drivers Vmware Esxi
ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30899283-offline_bundle-15188556.zipESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30940032-offline_bundle-15188510.zip
September 27, 2019 - v1.2
- Added support for Aquantia Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB network adapter (see Requirements page for more details)
- Added support for Auto Speed/Connection detection for RTL8153/RTL8152 chipsets
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903792-offline_bundle-14722993.zip
June 17, 2019 - v1.1
- Added support for 9 additional USB NIC devices including USB 2.0 RTL8152 & TPLINK (see Requirements page for complete list)
- Added support for Jumbo Frames (up to 4K) for RTL8153 & AX88179
- Resolved USB device detection issue on Intel XHCI controller
- Resolved packet record issue for ASIX USB network adapters
Install Drivers Vmware Esxi
ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30899283-offline_bundle-15188556.zipESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-30940032-offline_bundle-15188510.zip
September 27, 2019 - v1.2
- Added support for Aquantia Multi-Gig (1G/2.5G/5G) USB network adapter (see Requirements page for more details)
- Added support for Auto Speed/Connection detection for RTL8153/RTL8152 chipsets
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-28903792-offline_bundle-14722993.zip
June 17, 2019 - v1.1
- Added support for 9 additional USB NIC devices including USB 2.0 RTL8152 & TPLINK (see Requirements page for complete list)
- Added support for Jumbo Frames (up to 4K) for RTL8153 & AX88179
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-24599816-offline_bundle-13964320.zip
Esxi 6.5
Esxi Driver Build
February 12, 2019 - v1.0 (Initial Release)ESXi670-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-20124247-offline_bundle-11613968
ESXi650-VMKUSB-NIC-FLING-20123976-offline_bundle-11613344
