In the past it has been a massive pain to download the vSphere client. Although the web UI has become far less clunky and much more streamlined – we still present the vSphere Client download links for ALL client versions to date! A fair chunk of standard day-to-day administration can be comfortably done with the standalone client.
The vSphere Client is the principal interface for administering vCenter Server and ESXi; vSphere client download links are all listed above – make sure you have downloaded the correct version for your ESXi release! There’s no problem having more than one installed – the launcher, i.e. the login window you see when you open the client, will connect to your ESXi server and choose the correct version to carry on with – or prompt you to download another version!
The vSphere Client user interface is configured based on the server to which it is connected:
When the server is a vCenter Server system, the vSphere Client displays all the options available to the vSphere environment, according to the licensing configuration and the user permissions
When the server is an ESXi host, the vSphere Client displays only the options appropriate to single host management.
When you first log in to the vSphere Client, it displays a Home page with icons that you select to access vSphere Client functions. When you log out of the vSphere Client, the client application retains the view that was displayed when it closed, and returns you to that view when you next log in.
You perform many management tasks from the Inventory view, which consists of a single window containing a menu bar, a navigation bar, a toolbar, a status bar, a panel section, and pop-up menus.
This article describes how to connect a USB device to a vm in ESXi – for example a storage device, camera, USB handset etc. etc. Whilst previously not possible, since ESXi 5.0 this is now reality, much to the relief of many, many people!
1. Add a VM USB Controller
Firstly, your VM needs to have a USB controller; this is added as standard to most new virtual machines but if one is not present then we need to add it – open your VM settings and click the “Add” button:
Choose “USB Controller” and click “Next”; when prompted for the controller type, choose “EHCI+UHCI” for best compatibility or “xHCI” for USB 3.0 support. Note: xHCI USB 3.0 is only supported with Linux VMs currently – see this documentation for further details.
Once complete, you should see something akin to the following in your VM properties:
Excellent! Now let’s add a USB device to our VM:
2. Add a USB Device to the VM
Insert a USB device into one of the ports on your ESXi host. For this example I have used a Sandisk storage device. Open your VM machine properties and once again, click on “Add Hardware.” This time, choose “USB Device”: if your device has been correctly recognised by your ESXi host then it will show up on the next screen:
—–>
Click “Next,” “Finish” and lastly “OK” to complete the reconfiguration of the VM. Congratulations! Your USB device is now added.
3. Mount the Storage Device (*nix Only)
If you have just added a storage device to a Windows VM then you should see it pop up in explorer shortly. If you are on Linux / Unix / FreeBSD etc then you will need to mount your drive. Firstly we will need to find out what ID it has been assigned by the operating system – the easiest way to do this is to check the last entries in “dmesg” after adding the device:
[1546647.937025] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 10 using ehci_hcd
[1546648.363146] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0781, idProduct=5408
[1546648.363152] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[1546648.363157] usb 1-1: Product: U3 Titanium
[1546648.363160] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: SanDisk Corporation
[1546648.363164] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 000015E96A63058A
[1546648.364943] scsi11 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
[1546649.369282] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk U3 Titanium 3.21 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[1546649.373306] scsi 11:0:0:1: CD-ROM SanDisk U3 Titanium 3.21 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[1546649.374503] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[1546649.399562] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] 8015505 512-byte logical blocks: (4.10 GB/3.82 GiB)
[1546649.403475] sr1: scsi3-mmc drive: 8x/40x writer xa/form2 cdda tray
[1546649.403817] sr 11:0:0:1: Attached scsi CD-ROM sr1
[1546649.404505] sr 11:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg6 type 5
[1546649.417867] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Write Protect is off
[1546649.417873] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
[1546649.422634] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.422800] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.451967] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.452074] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.480289] sde: sde1
[1546649.506074] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] No Caching mode page present
[1546649.506184] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1546649.506332] sd 11:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
The most relevant part is the line reading “[1546649.480289] sde: sde1” – this tells us that the disk has been assigned the descriptor “sde” and the single partition on it “sde1“.
From here we can do a standard *nix mount command and access it normally – in this example I am mounting the newly added sde1 device to a pre-existing directory “/mnt/usb”:
root@merlin:~# mount /dev/sde1 /mnt/usb
We can check the operation has been successful by issuing the “mount” command on its own
root@merlin:~# mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
...
...
... /dev/sde1 on /mnt/usb type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
Job done! If this has been of interest to you, check out some of the other articles in the VMWare category!
ID 352856 “If an SCF is migrated between BIG-IP VE running on non-similar hypervisor software, a validation error may prevent configuration loading. Loading the configuration … BIGpipe interface creation error: 01070318:3: “”The requested media for interface 1.1 is invalid.”” When this condition is encountered on BIG-IP Virtual Edition, configuration may be fixed for import by removing the entire line that contains “”media fixed”” statements for each interface.”
If however, like me, you cannot find the “media fixed” anywhere in your bigip_base.conf file then it is most likely to be an issue with the vmxnet3 network adapters that are deployed by default.
My management adapter, also vmxnet3, came up fine but the other 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 interfaces remained uninitialised and any attempts to edit just threw the error above.
My solution was to change the adapter types in the .vmx file for the virtual machine:
1. Shut down the machine2. SSH / console into your ESXi host and change directory to /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_name>/<vm_directory>
3. Use the “vi” command to edit the <your_vm>.vmx file and change the “vmxnet3” entries to “e1000.” Note: you can generally leave the first interface (management) as vmxnet3.
4. Save the file and start up your machine – you should now be able to initialise and edit your interfaces under “Network” -> “Interfaces”
Job done, let me know if this works / doesn’t work for you!
