When attempting to install ESXi on QEMU/KVM, I encountered several issues. Firstly, the ESXi installer failed to detect the network adapter/NIC. Secondly, no disks were detected. After researching online, I decided to write this article to help others facing similar problems find easy solutions.
Network Adapter (nic)
For the network adapter issue, I tried all available models. The default NIC model in QEMU is virtio, but unfortunately, ESXi couldn’t detect it. I switched to the model type e1000e, and voila! The undetected network adapter error vanished.
Block Device Bus
The second issue was resolved by changing the block device bus to SATA. Disks were not detected when using other options like virtio and iSCSI.
Setup
Here’s how I set up ESXi on Qemu/KVM to run smoothly.
-
Downloading the ESXi ISO, you can get it here. https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/evalcenter?p=free-esxi7
-
Create a raw disk
qemu-img create -f raw /path/to/vmware.qcow2 10G -
Install VMware using viirt-install
virt-install --virt-type kvm -n esxi --memory 8192 --vcpus 4 --cdrom /path/to/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U3n-21930508.x86_64.iso --disk path=/path/to/vmware.qcow2,bus=sata,target=sda,size=10 --network=default,model=e1000e --graphics vnc --noautoconsole --os-variant fedora-unknown -
Once the disk is detected, continue the installation process normally.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I resolved the network adapter detection issue by switching to the ‘e1000e’ model, and for disk recognition, changing the block device bus to SATA proved effective. I trust this article will assist others facing similar challenges during ESXi installation on KVM, making the process smoother. Happy virtualization!