Homelab + ESXi Hostclient

calendarMar 2, 2016 · 2 min read · ESXi Homelab Hostclient HP VMware  ·
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My Homelab contains currently 2x HP Microserver N40L and one HP Microserver Gen8. The N40L’s are running ESXi 5.5 and the Gen8 is running ESXi 6. That’s my basic setup. Due the fact that I’m only using Apple computers I have searched a long time for an alternative to the vSphere fat client. Since a couple of months VMware has a Fling available called ESXi host client. The new host client is a HTML and JavaScript based vSphere client running directly on the hypervisor.

Hostclient installation:

Download the latest VIB from https://labs.vmware.com/flings/esxi-embedded-host-client

Upload the file to the ESXi datastore and install it using esxcli.

 esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/datastore/esxui-3530804.vib

Afterwards you can access the hostclient using the management IP of your ESXi host https://MGMT-IP/ui

hostclient_login

Login using your ESXi credentials.

hostclient_host_view

Most of the standard configurations can be handled with the new host client which simplifies everything.

Now I hope that VMware will integrate this host client directly into the ESXi and finally retire the old vSphere fat client.

Few words about my current Homelab and my future extension plans:

  • HP Microserver N40L

  • 1 AMD Fusion

  • 8GB Memory

  • HP Smart Array P410 512MB Cache + Battery

  • 2x 2TB Western Digital HDD

  • ILO cards

  • HP Microserver Gen8

  • Intel Pentium

  • 16GB Memory

  • HP Smart Array P410 512MB Cache + Battery

  • 2x 2TB Western Digital + 1x 4TB Seagate SSHD

  • SSD cache

  • ILO 4 onboard

Amazon: HP Microserver Gen8

I’m currently planing the replacement of the N40L’s with the new HP ML10 v2. The ML10 v2 has an very attractive price in Germany (around 180€) containing 1x Intel Pentium, 4GB Memory, no HDD. The new box is capable to handle up to 32GB of Memory, 4 HDDs and can also be equipped with an Intel Xeon.

Amazon: HP ML10 v2

There will be another post dedicated to the new ESXi host client including more screenshots and descriptions how to configure an ESXi host just using this client.