How to install software on ESXi 4 host?

[Virgnar]

I would like to monitor using Nagios my ESXi 4 host server through remote console shell, but there's a couple snags with the Linux environment ESXi comes in:

• There's no gcc installed
• No package manager like yum or apt-get
• Can't find any RPMs related to this RHEL build

So I'm stumped because I can't find RPMs suitable for this RHEL build, and when I want to compile I can't because there's no gcc. Any clues? This is with Nagios using NRPE, but if I have to resort to SNMP I will go that route.

Linux build: (Linux version 2.6.18-128.ESX (mts@pa-lin-bld384.eng.vmware.com) (gcc version 4.1.2) #1 Thu Oct 15 16:11:16 PDT 2009 [ESX Service Console build 201756)

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Community - First off ESXi is not Linux - the VMkernel is developed by VMware - It is not reommended to install software on your ESXi host unless it is specifically design for ESXi - so unless Nagios has developed an agent for ESXi you will not be able to install it-

[Virgnar]

Thanks weinstein. There are Nagios checks specifically designed for ESXi, such as this one. However, it does appear now that they're supposed to be ran remotely from the Nagios server itself. It goes against my intent to use NRPE on client servers, but for the ESXi host it looks like I will have to make an exception. Thank you!