How to Install VMWare ESX Server from a USB flash drive
Like many of you (I am guessing) I have an old PC and at least 5 hard disks lying around which I thought I’ll put in good use. So I decided to make a NAS server. And I thought the PC I’ve got isn’t that bad (dual core, 3GB ram, etc. etc.) so why not make it so that I can run another OS if I want. So there came the idea of using VMWare. Now, while installing I realised it’d be better if I could run it from an USB drive. So I Google’d it like you and found this step by step tutorial which I thought I’ll publish here. Thanks to Paul at VMWare community for sharing these information first. So here it, installing VMWare ESX from a USB Flash Drive.
Requirements:
- You will need at least a 1 GB USB flash disk.
- You must have both the ESX 3.x CD-ROM and ISO image handy.
- You will need an ISO image extraction tool such as WinISO, MagicISO, or even WinRAR.
- You’ll need SYSLINUX, a Linux boot loader for removable media. Get it here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-3.36.zip
- These instructions are based on a Windows PC for simplicity. If you’re a Linux guru, then you can obviously do this under Linux. You’d need to know how to mount .ISO images in order to extract files, etc.
Steps:
- Plug in your USB flash disk and format it under Windows. Use the FAT filesystem (not FAT32, although it would probably work).
- From Windows Explorer, find the boot.iso file in the /images directory on the ESX 3.x CD-ROM. Copy boot.iso into a temporary directory on your hard drive.
- Using your ISO extraction program of choice, extract the contents of the boot.iso file to your USB flash drive. On my PC, it’s the E: drive.
- Delete the isolinux.bin and updatecd.cfg files from the USB flash disk.
- Rename the isolinux.cfg file on the USB flash disk to syslinux.cfg
- Using WordPad (not Notepad), open the syslinux.cfg file and add the keyword usb to the end of every line that begins with append. Here’s what the file should look like when you’re done:
- Now, extract the syslinux .zip file into another temporary directory on your hard drive.
- Open up a command prompt and use the cd command to navigate into the win32 directory. For example: cd C:\temp\syslinux-3.36\win32
- Now, run the syslinux program to apply the boot loader and boot sector to the USB flash drive: syslinux -s e: ( On my PC, my USB flash drive is mounted as drive E: )
- Finally, copy the ESX 3.x ISO image onto the flash drive: copy c:\iso\esx-3.0.1-32039.iso e:\
- Confirm that your USB flash drive contains the following files: boot.cat boot.msg initrd.img snake.msg splash.lss vmlinuz syslinux.cfg esx-3.0.1-32039.iso
- You’re all set! Unplug the USB flash drive, configure the BIOS on your server to boot from USB accordingly, and boot ‘er up!
- The ESX installer will detect the USB device and whatever SCSI / disk controllers you have. When the installer asks you what the installation source will be, choose Hard Disk.
- You will need to choose the right disk device (ie. /dev/sda, /dev/sdb) that corresponds to your USB flash disk. Chances are it will be /dev/sdb.
- Finally, the installer will ask you what directory to find the ESX installation CD image in. Just use / and it will find the .ISO image for you.
- The rest is history!
default esx prompt 1 timeout 600 display boot.msg F1 boot.msg F7 snake.msg label debug kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img noapic nomediacheck debug usb label esx kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img usb label text kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img text usb label expert kernel vmlinuz append expert initrd=initrd.img usb label ks kernel vmlinuz append ks initrd=initrd.img usb label lowres kernel vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.img lowres usb
You can follow the forum posts here if you come across any problems or leave your comments and I’ll try and help you ASAP.
Google PageRank (PR) 10 Websites
If you’re a webmaster then I can guarantee that the first thing you look at when you go to any and I mean any website is the PageRank of that website. Why? For those who aren’t familiar with PageRank then read the following articles:
Anyway, just today I was wondering how many websites are there with PageRank 10 (out of 10) as of Google’s last PageRank update. To my surprise I’ve found only 3. A few of the PageRank 10 websites like Adobe have lost their PageRank 10 position. Here’re the 3 sites with PageRank 10:
- http://www.usa.gov/
- http://www.google.com/
- http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
What is Google PageRank or PR?
If you’re a webmaster then you may know what Google PageRank is and how it works. You may also know what important role it plays for your website. Even though most of us have an understanding of this technology, a lot of the time I’ve seen webmasters misinterpret it. Coming across so many of those misinterpretation, I finally thought I’ll explain it on my own words and give some official reference so that next time I see someone having slightest doubt about it I can then refer them to this article. I tried to write it in the simplest way possible so that people who aren’t familiar with this term or technology can understand it very easily. So, hopefully after reading this article you’ll know exactly what PR is and how it works.
Get One Year FREE Digital Subscription of Popular Magazines
Well, we know PC Magazine has recently announced the end of their 27-year-old flagship highly popular magazine. Starting next year PC Magazine will only be available online. The January 2009 issue will be their final printed copy. You’ll still be able to buy them but only the digital copy.
Anyway, with that announcement and with the help of a Read Green campaign, you can now get a Free digital copy of PC Magazine or any of the 16 other popular magazines for a whole year.
Google Street View, Privacy & You
Ever since Google introduced its Street view, people have been endlessly talking about it; both good and bad. Funnily enough, most of the people who talks and cries about privacy being breached don’t really know that they can easily get around that with just a few clicks. I faced couple of situation like this and untill recently I used to explain it to them. But now I just point those “curious minds” to this video.
SecondLight: Another Dimension of Surface Touchscreens
While we know Microsoft’s latest OS Vista is in a mess and a $300 million dollar bail out campaign worked too little for them, it looks like Microsoft’s UK research division is trying their best to put all these mistakes behind and working on some cool stuff that really works.
Microsoft’s latest touchscreen innovation SecondLight, which they presented was at their PDC keynote recently, was the main attraction of the event. SecondLight is a new rear projection-vision surface technology that augments the typical interactions afforded by multi-touch and tangible tabletops with the ability to project and sense both through and beyond the display.
MySpace Welcomes Pirated Videos
MySpace and Auditude have joined forces together to create an all new solution for online pirated streaming videos (such as snippets of TV shows). Auditude, a 7 year old Palo Alto based company has been working on a technology for the last four years which automatically checks the digital signature of a video and recognizes who owns the rights to that video clips.
Mobile Phones to Help Make Aiports Greener
We used to have proper air tickets in the past which slowly got replaced by e-tickets. But it is still paper based. And we all know the source of paper. The way Amazon Rainforest is vanishing and ice is melting on the north, we may see the global warming in our lifetime; unless we do something about it. We can’t change things over night but an united effort in any possible way can make a huge difference. And that’s what makes this news worthy.
Google Analytics Meets AdSense
Finally Google has combined Analytics and AdSense together! AdSense has been integrated with Analytics so now you will be able check your AdSense report from inside Analytics, a feature we’ve been waiting for a long long time. This feature will not only save your time but will also give you more detailed statistics of your AdSense revenue and user behavior on your site.
Credit: AdSense
Android G1 Makes Its Debut in the US Market
Android G1 has officially hit the US market yesterday. T-mobile released G1, the first smartphone based on Google’s open-source mobile platform, Android. The most compelling thing about Android is it’s fully open sourced. So anyone can jump and work on it pretty much straightaway. Though at the moment Google only teamed up with HTC Taiwan to make the device and integrate it’s mobile operating system, but already all the giants like Samsung and Motorola are lining up to use Android in their production line. So hopefully by next year we’ll start seeing a lot more devices filled up with Android.
