Milestone 1 ‐ ESXi and Basic Networking - lpcyber1/SYS350 GitHub Wiki

Server Setup

Installing ESXi and Setting up Networking

  • First use Rufus to put the ESXi 8 iso onto a usb and plug it into your supermicro
  • Browse to your assigned IP for your supermicro then sign in with creds emailed to you Screenshot 2024-09-04 194808
  • Head over to the Remote Control option across the top and select iKVM/HTML5 which will pop up your remote console. Select Power Control and do Set Power Reset

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  • Once you see this screen start smashing F11 since that is the key to enter the boot menu. From there you will select the USB option which will enter the ESXi installer screen image

  • It will ask you to agree to some things but you end up at a menu of which it asks you which storage device you want to install ESXi to, select the smaller disk you supermicro has

  • ESXi will take some time to install but once it is done, your device will reboot and once rebooted it prompts you to set the root password. Do so and write it down

  • Plug an ethernet ethernet cable from the lab into one port on your server and an open port on the switch. From there select Network Adapters and activate the one that says Connected on the right side with space. Also deactivate the Disconnected currently active

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  • Set your IPv4 address configuration to your assigned address with the /24 subnet mask and the Freeman gateway of 192.168.3.250

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  • Also make sure to set your Primary and Alternate DNS servers to 192.168.4.4 and 192.168.4.5

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  • Now you are able to browse to vSphere with the IP for your server and sign in with the root credentials you set image

vSphere Setup

  • My supermicro only has 1 SSD so I renamed it to datastore1-super27

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  • I was able to upload the pfsense and xubuntu iso files to this ssd into the ISOs folder from the Cyber-Share network storage.

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  • Next is creating a Virtual Switch and a Port Group. Select Add standard virtual switch in the network menu. Remove the uplink option and name it 350-internal

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  • Do the same for a port group with Add port group with the following options making sure the Virtual switch is the one we just made

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Base VM + Xubuntu and pFsense Setup

Base VMs

  • For xubuntu: Create a VM using the xubuntu iso with 1 network adapter on 350-internal, do a minimal install, add a basic user. Poweroff, remove cdrom, snapshot named "Base". Specs: 5 gb ram, 2 cpu, 30 gb storage thin provisioned.
  • For pfsense: Create a VM using the pfsense iso with 2 network adapters, 1 on VM Network and 1 on 350-internal. Clear any addresses given and make sure no dhcp, poweroff, disconnect cdrom, snapshot named "Base". Specs: 2 gb ram, 1 cpu, 8 gb storage thin provisioned.

Xubuntu Setup

  • Sign into the user you added, look up at the right corner and select Edit Connections... then double click on Wired connection 1

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  • Click on IPv4 Settings and make the method Manual to set your address options to the following

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pfSense Setup

  • Turn your pfSense vm on to the menu it has, select option 1 to assign interfaces to make sure vmx0 is WAN (VM Network) and vmx1 is LAN (350-internal)
  • Next select option 2 to set interface addresses, first do vmx0 and set it to the address provided with a /24 subnet. Also set the WAN upstream gateway to 192.168.3.250, no dhcp on WAN, no revert to http. Select option 2 again, select vmx1, set the address 10.0.17.2/24, no upstream, no dhcp on LAN, no revert to http
  • Interfaces should be this now

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  • Next head over to your xubuntu VM and browse to 10.0.17.2 and sign in with the default pfSense credentials. Go through the pfSense setup wizard where you; set the hostname to pfX as X being you supermicro number, domain yourname.local, dns server 1.1.1.1, uncheck unblock RFC1918 private networks, and set admin password

Deliverables

  • Deliverable 1 Screenshot showing successful login to your ESXi host with IP in screenshot

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  • Deliverable 2 Screenshot showing your two datastores, where the second one has a directory of two iso files

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  • Deliverable 3 Screenshot showing your virtual switch and associated port group

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  • Deliverable 4 Screenshot from your mgmt1 box showing your 10.0.17.0/24 address as well as your successful ping to an internet host

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Reflection

This was a good lab for me as I had installed ESXi previously but not as hands on. I do wish my first supermicro's processor didn't give out on me after having the lab practically complete, it is what it is. As far as setting up base VMs I have also done that previously but in vCenter not vSphere so this was slightly different. One big problem I had was when my first supermicro died, I was trying to install ESXi to another and for some reason it was being a pain on detecting the usb. One of the usb I plugged in had windows server on it too. But after awhile I got it installed and got majority of my progress back during class time.