Milestone 1 ESXi and Basic Networking - nicolas-tullio/Tech-Journal GitHub Wiki

Setup

The initial setup for this lab/class required some physical configuration, those steps were as follows:

• Ensure that the Super Micro server has a uplink connected and plug in the USB containing ESXI 8
• From a cyber.local workstation, use a browser to the IP of the Super Micro
• Log in to the IPMI using the provided username and password
• Use the iKVM + F11 to boot from the USB with ESXI on it
• Follow the setup to install ESXI
• After ESXI is installed, go to the configured IP and you should see vSphere
• From there I configured my datastores, vSwitches, and corresponding port groups
• Using the uploaded ISOs I created VMs for a pfSense Firewall VM and a Xubuntu management VM.

Reflection

This lab setup was rather simple to understand one all the physical components were in good shape. Having worked with vCenter for so long it was really interesting to be able to go a step further and start from a fresh ESXI. I think the place I struggled most was my pfsense firewall as I made some silly networking mistakes.