It is possible to create a complete VMware® Virtual Infrastructure 3.5 test environment on a single desktop or laptop. This self-contained environment can include multiple VMware ESX servers, a VirtualCenter server, and a storage appliance that are all running as VMs themselves. The ability to do VMware vMotion™ migration, Storage vMotion migration, VMware High Availability (VMware HA), and DRS within this test environment allows for a broad range of testing as well as evaluation and demo uses. This page will document how to set up such an environment on a laptop as well as provide an area for discussion and questions. This configuration is not supported by Dell, but is documented here for those who might be interested.

Physical Hardware


  • For an example test setup on a Dell Latitude™ D630 with 4 GB RAM and a 40 GB hard drive was used.

Host Software and Applications


  • Linux® SUSE® 6.5 or Microsoft® Windows® XP
  • VMware Workstation 6.5 Beta (build-91182)

ESX VMs Install

Using VMware Workstation, we are going to create two VMware ESX 3.5 virtual machines (VMs) with one vCPU, 1024 MB of RAM, one vNIC, and one Internet SCSI (iSCSI ) connection (software initiator) to connect our ESX servers to an iSCSI NAS appliance (openfiler) to enable vMotion, Storage vMotion, and DRS.

  • Open VMware Workstation and select File > New > Virtual Machine, and select Custom

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  • Make sure that the VM hardware compatibility is for Workstation 5 and that you check the option ESX Server Compatible:

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  • In the "Select a Guest Operation System" window, select Linux as a guest operating system and Red Hat Linux as the version. Click Next.
  • Select a name and location for your ESX VM and click Next.
  • In the Processor Configuration window select the number of processors (I have noticed that when I configure both ESX servers in my environment to used two processors the whole thing slows down) and click Next.
  • In the Memory for the Virtual Machine window select the memory for this VM (for example,1024 MB; you can add more later) and click Next.
  • In the Network Type window select "Use bridged networking" so you can have connectivity with other ESX servers in your environment and the host OS and click Next.
  • In the Select I/O Adapter Types window select LSI Logic SCSI Adapter.
  • In the Select a Disk Type window select SCSI Virtual disk type and click Next.
  • In the Specify Disk Capacity window select 8 GB of disk size and check "Allocate all disk space now." Click Next.
  • In the Specify Disk File window change the name to something more descriptive like, "esx1.vmdk," and click Finish.
  • After the virtual disk has been created close VMware Workstation, and use Notepad to open the VMX file for the created VM. Add the following lines:

ethernet0.virtualDev = "e1000"
ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"
monitor_control.restrict_backdoor = TRUE
monitor_control.vt32 = TRUE
monitor.virtual_exec = "hardware"

  • Save the changes to the VMX file, and open VMware Workstation.
  • Edit Virtual Machine settings to the attached ESX binaries CD or ESX ISO file.

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  • Proceed to install ESX as it was on a physical box.

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  • When you finish the ESX Server installation, you see the ESX console OS window:

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VirtualCenter VM


  • Create a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Virtual Machine, and install VirtualCenter 2.5.
  • You can clone the fist ESX1 Server VM so that you can have two ESX servers in your environment to play around with vMotion, DRS, and so on.

Openfiler Storage NAS Appliance VM

  1. Go to http://www.openfiler.com/community/download/ and download the x86 ISO image
  2. Create an openfiler VM in to your VMWare Workstation

  • Open VMware Workstation and select file/new/Virtual Machine and select Custom
  • Make sure that the Virtual machine Hardware compatibility is for Workstation 6
  • On the "Select a Guest Operation System" window select Linux as a Guest operating system and Other Linux 2.6.x Kernel as Version. Click next
  • Select a name and location for your openfiler Virtual Machine and click next
  • On the "Processor Configuration" window select a single processor and click next
  • On the "Memory for the Virtual Machine" window select the memory for this virtual machine, e.g.1024MB and click next
  • O the "Network Type" select "Use bridged networking" and click next
  • On the "Select I/O Adapter Types" window select LSI Logic SCSI Adapter and click next
  • On the "Select a Disk Type" window select SCSI Virtual disk type and click nextOn the "Specify Disk Capacity" window select 20GB (this will help all the VMs) of disk size and check Allocate all disk space now. Click next
  • On the "Specify Disk File" window change the name to something more descriptive like "openfiler.vmdk" and click finish.
  • Edit openfiler virtual machine settings to make sure the CD-ROM device status is "connect at power on" and that under Connection we are using the openfiler ISO image we downloaded.
  • Power On openfiler VM and go thought the installation - it is very similar to ESX install - Make sure you assign an static IP address
  • Once the installation finish use a web browser to configure the appliance
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  • Log on as openfiler (username) with password "password"
  • Select General tab and Local Networks
  • On the Local networks configuration, select a name for your ESX servers, give it a network IP, netmask and make sure the type is share, and finally click on the update button.
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  • Next, click the Volumes tab and then on Physical Storage Mgmt. and create a volume group.

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  • When the volume group is created we need to add it to a storage group under Volumes/Create New Volume tab (make sure that the Filesystem type is iSCSI).
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  • iSCSI host access configuration for volumes is deny by default. Make sure you update the access to Allow.
  • Go to volumes/ List of Existing Volumes and click on edit under Properties.

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  • Configure the iSCSI CHAP Authentication for the new Volume.
  • And finally enable the iSCSI services under Services/Enable-Disable.


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We have completed all the steps we need to present the volume to our ESX servers.

The last step would be to enable the iSCSI software initiator in your ESX server to see our openfiler LUN.