How to install VMware ESXi 8 on a dedicated server

Objective

This guide will show you how to install ESXi 8 on your dedicated servers, and select a partitioning layout in the OVHcloud Control Panel or via the OVHcloud API.

Requirements

• A dedicated server ready to be installed/reinstalled in your OVHcloud account that is compatible with ESXi 8 hardware requirements
• Access to the OVHcloud Control Panel and/or the OVHcloud API

Instructions

With OVHcloud dedicated servers, you can freely configure partitioning. This gives customers a wide range of options when installing an operating system. ESXi is an exception because it is a UNIX-based, proprietary system with a proprietary installer.

OVHcloud installations of ESXi are therefore compliant with the configuration set by the software publisher.

ESXi 7.0 and later versions introduced a boot option to configure the size of ESXi system partitions because the increased size of the system partition could cause issues, especially on systems with small disks. OVHcloud includes this feature in the OVHcloud Control Panel and the OVHcloud API.

Even with multiple disks available on a server, the ESXi OS installation uses only the first disk of the targeted disk group (see OVHcloud API and OS Installation - Disk Groups). Other disks may be configured afterwards to be used for virtual machines (see How to add a datastore).

There are 4 predefined partitioning layouts:

¹ On the first disk of the targeted disk group for the OS installation.
² Space on the disk on which the OS will be installed.
³ A datastore is a disk partition (sometimes also called "container") that ESXi will use to store the virtual machines. More details.
⁴ Customers can still add a datastore afterwards on the other disks.

As you can see, no datastore is created on the first disk with the max partitioning layout.

How to select the partitioning scheme

The default partitioning scheme will be used unless another one is selected.

Via the OVHcloud Control Panel

Log in to the OVHcloud Control Panel. From the General information tab, click the ... button next to the operating system and then click Reinstall my server.

Then choose Virtualisation, UNIX and select the version of ESXi you want to install on your dedicated server.

Choose the disk group on which you want ESXi to be installed. Note that only the first disk of this group will be used to install the OS. Find more information in this guide.

Click Next to continue.

In the Partitioning scheme dropdown menu, select the desired partitioning scheme. The overview is updated as soon as you select another partitioning scheme, so you can get an idea of how the partitioning will look like on your dedicated server.

Fill in the other details and click Confirm to start the ESXi installation on your dedicated server.

Via the OVHcloud API

When triggering an OS installation, the customer can optionally provide a partitionSchemeName in order to specify which partitioning layout must be used:

Example of payload:

{
    "operatingSystem": "esxi80_64",
    "storage": [
        {
            "partitioning": {
                "schemeName": "small"
            }
        }
    ]
}

To list the different available partitioning schemes for an OVHcloud template, you can use the following API call:

For example, using the template name esxi80_64 will return:

[
"default"
"max"
"small"
"min"
]

In order to get the details of the partitioning scheme dynamically, you can use the following API call:

For example, using the scheme name default will return:

[
  "/scratch",
  "/bootbank",
  "/altbootbank",
  "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1"
]

You can use the following API call to get the details for each partition:

For example, using the mountpoint /bootbank will return:

{
  "order": 2,
  "filesystem": "fat16",
  "mountpoint": "/bootbank",
  "size": {
    "value": 4095,
    "unit": "MB"
  },
  "raid": "0",
  "type": "primary",
  "volumeName": ""
}

Go further

Boot option to configure the size of ESXi system partitions

Getting started with a dedicated server

Getting started with a Kimsufi, So You Start or Rise dedicated server

OVHcloud API & OS installation

OVHcloud API and Storage

Managing hardware RAID

Hot Swap - Hardware RAID

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