Deployment, PowerShell and System Administration

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 06: Set Up Domain and Related Services

In this post, we will configure our server to host an Active Directory domain, and set up some related services. After you set up Windows 2008 on your server, it will log in automatically and open the Initial Configuration Tasks window. Configure Networking First off, we’ll configure the network, so click on Configure networking. You’ll

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 05: Domain Controller Setup

The first virtual machine we will create will be the domain controller, which will also handle DHCP and DNS, running Windows 2008 R2 64-bit. Create Virtual Machine In the vSphere Client, go to the Virtual Machines tab, right-click and choose New Virtual Machine… I always choose to create a Custom virtual machine, as it gives

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 04: Lab Host Configuration

Before we can create our virtual servers and virtual ESXi hosts, we need to configure the Lab Host for our virtual environment. Hostname Although it’s not strictly necessary, I like to configure my Lab Host with a suitable hostname. In the vSphere Client, click on the Configuration tab, DNS and Routing on the left, and

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 03: Installation of vSphere Client

This post will detail the installation of the vSphere Client, which will be used to manage the Lab Host ESXi installation. Install the vSphere Client Either extract the vSphere Client install file from the ESXi ISO, or open a browser to the address displayed on your Lab Host and click the link to Download vSphere

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 02: ESXi Installation on Physical Hardware

In the rest of this series, I will refer to the physical ESXi PC as the Lab Host, to differentiate it from the virtual ESXi servers which will be installed on it. First off, you’ll need to burn the VMware Hypervisor Installer ISO to CD and then boot the Lab Host from that CD.  If

vSphere Lab-in-a-Box 01: Introduction, Hardware and Software

This weekend I rebuilt my home vSphere lab with vSphere version 5.1, so took the time to document the procedure, both as a record for myself and a set of instructions that others might follow to set up their own “Lab-in-a-Box”. The posts below will guide you through setting up ESXi 5.1 on a physical