ESXI 5.5 and Rackmount KVM LCD

[modgod]

Good Evening All,

I need some advice regarding setting up a KVM over IP rackmount solution with servers running ESXI 5.5,

I understand that in normal procedure the OS installed on the machine running ESXI is accessed with the Vsphere client running on a machine on the LAN.

The KVM over IP solution I have is a Avocent MPU108E with a dell rackmount LCD. I am very new to the whole Vmware world and specifically server level VMware setups so please be patient with me.

When plugging in an LCD over VGA to either of our DC's running the ESXI VM I see the screen that displays "download tools to manage this host". From research done so far I see no way of accessing the actual OS directly with a screen and kb/mouse plugged in - why is this?

Is the only way of accessing the OS running on the VM via the Vsphere client? Is there a way to use the KVM over IP to access the OS running on the VM and not just view the "download tools to manage this host" boot screen.

The only workaround I can think of is to have a small PC running in the rack which connects to the KVM LCD I can then use this machine to RDP in to either DC.

All advice welcome, please excuse my lack of knowledge.

[rcporto]

Different from other Hypervisors, like Hyper-V where you can access the Windows Server parent partition and with Hyper-V Manager manage the virtual machines without the need of an additional system, with vSphere, you will need another system with vSphere Client installed to manage (and access) the virtual machines console running on vSphere ESXi. Ps.: depending of your vSphere version, you may can use the embedded host client, just pointing the browser of your management station to the FQDN or IP address of your ESXi host, eliminating the need of install the vSphere Client.

Anyway, a management workstation in your rack is a good idea, but remember that once you assign the IP address to the ESXi host, you can access that host from a remote workstation, and of course access the virtual machine through RDP or SSH, depending of the Guest OS type.

[frostyk]

TLDR: yes you need to manage your DCs from the vsphere client and not your KVM.

FIrst let me make sure I understand your setup.  You have one ESXi host that has some virtual machines on it.  These virtual machines are your domain controllers (DCs).  You have a KVM hooked up to the physical box with ESXi running on it and want to manage the domain controllers that are virtual machines on that host.

Lets get the lingo down so we can all be on the same page.

Host Operating System = ESXi, this is your hypervisor.  This is the VMware Operating system that does nothing other than host Virtual Machines.

Virtual Machine = A server that is running as software on the ESXi hypervisor.  This will have some operating system installed on it known as the Guest Operating System.

Guest Operating System = A virtual machine's operating system.  In your cause this is probably windows server since you are running DCs.

If I understand your question, you want to access the guest operating systems (Windows) running on your Host (ESXi) via physical KVM console (LCD screen).  No, you can't do this.  The screen you see when you hook a monitor up to a ESXi host is called the direct console user interface (DCUI).  This is just a very basic setup screen you can use to manage things like the hosts IP address and break into a shell (linux like "ESXi Shell" that is a smaller version of BASH).  In the VMware world you only really use this DCUI when you initially setting up the host, or when something is broken and you need to do some lower level troubleshooting.  The whole point of the hypervisor (ESXi) is to run guest operating systems without using up much of the physical hosts resources.  Any resources ESXi uses is overhead, so adding the ability to manage the guests directly from ESXi would be a lot of overhead and thus waste.

To manage the virtual machines running on that host you need to install the vSphere client on some other system and point it to your hosts IP/DNS address.  You can also just RDP into your Windows based systems if you have RDP on them enabled and the Windows firewalls opened to it.

You might want to check out some hand on labs for free training:

VMware Learning Platform

Or pay a little for the official training that is a requirement if you want to get certified.  This is the cheapest way to do the training I've found.

VMware vSphere: Install, Configure, Manage | Stanly Community College

[modgod]

Thank you very much Frostyk and Richardson porto, you were able to understand my situation despite my lack of understanding and inability to describe the setup using correct jargon.

Thanks for clarifying how to access the guest operating system, I guess I will be getting a rack workstation or making our file server in to a temporary Vsphere machine.

I will take a look at the links you posted and educate myself some more on vmware.

Thanks again!