vSphere-6:Part 8-Configuring Esxi Hosts Settings |

In last post of this series we have seen how to create and configure dvswitch and portgroups on dvswitch and how to migrate networking from Standard switch to dvSwitch.

In this post we will see how to configure basic esxi host settings.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series then you can access the same by clicking on below links:

1: Introduction to vSphere 6

2: vSphere 6-Lab Setup

3: Installing and Configuring Esxi Server 6

4: Installing vCenter 6

5: Enabling AD Authentication for vCenter Server

6: vCenter Server 6 Basic Configuration

7: Configuring dvSwitch & Port groups

Let’s get started with some basic configuration tasks on the Esxi host.

Adding Esxi hosts to Domain

It’s always a good idea to add Esxi hosts to your corporate domain. Adding Esxi hosts to domain allow you to push specific configurations and security settings from your Domain Controller. Also it can help you track which user has done what activity on esxi hosts (in case Esxi host is disconnected from vCenter and user needs to connect to host directly)

Connect to vCenter server Web-Client and select the Esxi host. Go to Summary tab and expand the hardware tab to list the hardware configuration of the host. You can also check Esxi host configuration settings by expanding the arrow button listed in front of configuration tab.

To Add Esxi host to domain follow the steps shown below:

1: Select the Esxi host and navigate to manage tab. Select Authentication Services from left side menu and click on join domain.

2: A new window will be launched. provide your domain name and the username password of the user account which has rights to add machine to domain. Its best practice to use a service account for these purposes. Click OK after providing the necessary info.

And its done. Your Esxi host is added to your domain now.

Enabling SSH access to Host

Sometime you need to access Esxi host over SSH to use functions which are not available through GUI. Specially analyzing host logs t the time of issues. To enable SSH access to host do the following.

Select the security profile option and select SSH service and click on Edit button.

A new window will be popped up. Select ssh service from list of services and click on start button and if you want to start this service automatically when the host boots, select “start and stop with host” option and hit OK.

Configuring iSCSI Software Adapter to Add LUN’s to Esxi Host

I am running openfiler in my Lab to create LUN’s for to be used as shared storage to satisfy requirements of vMotion, HA and DRS etc. You can follow this Blog for instructions on how to install/configure openfiler.

1: Select esxi host and navigate to Manage > Storage tab. Click on + button to add software iSCSI adapter.

2: Click on OK button to Add new iSCSI software adapter.

3: Select the newly added adapter and click on properties tab to see general properties of the adapter.

4: Go to targets tab and select dynamic discovery and click on Add button to add iSCSI target.

5: In the new window that popped out provide the IP address of the iSCSI target server and provide 3260 in port number and click on OK.

6: iSCSI target will be listed under Dynamic discovery now.

You need to rescan your storage adapter before the newly added LUN can be presented as datastore to Esxi host.

7: Go to static Discovery tab to find out the iqn number of the added target.

8: Devices tab will tell you from where your LUN’s will be coming from and whats the size of the LUN.

9: Now navigate to Related Objects > Datastores tab to create a new datastore from the LUN. Click on the little grey icon shown in below screenshot to add the datastore.

10: Select VMFS as filesystem and click next.

11: Provide a name for your datastore and select the appropriate LUN (in case more than one LUN is mapped collectively to your Esxi host) and hit Next.