Hardware
- VMware vSphere Hypervisor 5.x and 6.0 (ESXi) use a filesystem called vmfs5 (formerly vmfs3), which uses GPT and supports drive sizes of up to 64 TiB (formerly 2 TiB).
- Software RAID is *not* supported by ESXi.
- The free version of ESXi starting with 5.5 supports a maximum of 4 TB RAM (formerly 32 GB RAM).
Network configuration
VMware vSphere Hypervisor is an "operating system" designed for pure virtualization and supports neither NAT nor routing. Therefore, only a true bridged setup can be used.
To use a subnet an additional single IP needs to be setup as a router VM.
Installation
The installation and configuration of ESXi takes about 20-30 minutes, even without any prior knowledge. Please check out the Installation Guide for further information on installing ESXi.
License
After installation the system has a test license, which expires after 60 days. For the long-term usage of the OS a separate (free) license is required. This can be requested by registering on the VMware website:
License for ESXi 5.x
License for ESXi 6.0
The license can be entered via the vSphere Client, under the tab "Configuration", the section "Software" and then under the menu item "Licensed functions". After selecting this you can click on the "Edit" button to the right and then enter the license key.
