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INSTALLING AND CONFIGURING ESXI EMBEDDED WEB CLIENT

VMWare has officially announced they will be discontinuing vSphere desktop client in their future version releases of vSphere software. Henceforth they want to promote HTML5 web client . For more and detailed information you can check this check this official blog here. Currently vCenter has its inbuilt vSphere Web client (Required Adobe Flash), now they have HTML5 web client can be downloaded from their fling website, it's in an OVA. For ESXi version there is separate file need to be installed so esxi can be managed from web browser. Below is the link to download software for ESXi embedded host client its free.

This steps are not required on VMware Esxi 6.5 version as it already has come with embeded host client and accessing web client portal is same way, Portal URL will be https://IPAddress or Hostname/ui.

https://labs.vmware.com/flings/esxi-embedded-host-client

I have downloaded it for ESXi 6 and uploaded it on ESXi, In the desktop version vSphere client as shown in earlier blog. Login to the vSphere client. go to summary tab, under storage select datastore1 (esxi disk drive), right click and browse datastore.

Click upload button and select upload file. 

From the popup select download zip file and start upload. This is only 3 MB of zip file. This file we need to install on ESXi.

I uploaded VIB software file, It need to be installed, I will use putty, for this SSH service need to enabled. Go to Configuration tab, from left side software pane select Security Profile, press Security Profile Properties to enable ssh service.

Select SSH, click Options and click start, Service is started, I can see in the tasks. and service status is running, now I can use putty ssh client to connect ESXi server now.

Here is status of SSH service is running now. Also I see tasks completed successfully in the bottom. (Start service and Update service activation process), Once my work is done I stopped SSH service in the last using same procedure.

Open Putty, use ESXi server IP or hostname, click yes for certificate security warning.Use root user and password. Datastore1 is located under /vmfs/volumes folder.  
I just confirmed esxiui bundle zip file under /vmfs/volumes/datastore1, Install file using below command
esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/esxui-offline-bundle-6.x-3843236.zip

If everything is good there will be successful message, also note no reboot is required for this operation.

Now it its testing time, you can open any web browser and try with https://IPAddress or Hostname/ui, and explore the new web client for ESXi server. I am using google chrome and my URL for ESXi is https://192.168.33.21/ui, you will receive certificate warning you can ingore it safely, put your username as root and password.

And there is beautiful ESXi embedded web client.

Stay tuned for next article - END OF LIFE OF VSPHERE CLIENT, WELCOME TO NEW HTML5 WEB CLIENT
Another Usefull Blogs
PART 1 : INSTALLING ESXI ON VMWARE WORKSTATION HOME LAB
PART 2 : CONFIGURING ESXI ON VMWARE WORKSTATION HOME LAB
PART 3 : ACCESSING STANDALONE ESXI SERVER IN HOME LAB USING VSPHERE CLIENT

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