Like a lot of the VMware community, I bought a Raspberry Pi immediately when the announcement was made ESXionArm was out. I ordered an 8GB model here are the steps I went through to get it up and running.
For the full documentation, please check out the fling site.
I started by downloading the Raspberry Pi imager.
With at least a 4 GB SD Card, I imaged Rasperry Pi OS
I placed the sd card in the RPi and started it up.
Once up, we need to update the EEPROM. In order for this to work the RPI has to have an internet connection. If plugged into your network with a DHCP server, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Open a terminal window and run the following commands
sudo rpi-eeprom-update
If there are any updates apply them with
sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
sudo reboot
Once updates are complete. Shut down the PI
Next we need to setup UEFI on the SD Card. Start by downloading the following two items
The SD card we used previously can be formatted for the next section, or use another formatted(Fat32) sd card.
With the first link above copy all the contents from the boot directory onto the blank sd card.
Once copied(or before) delete the 4 files that begin with kernel*
Currently on the SD card you should have all the files from the boot directory, minus the kernel files.
Next from the second link above extract all the files and copy all of them to the sd card.
If there are any duplicates, just choose to overwrite during the copy process.
Next we need two usb sticks. One is going to have the ESXi on Arm bootable iso on it, and the second can be blank as it will be where ESXi on Arm gets installed.
Download the iso from the fling site, and burn it to a usb drive. I am on Ubuntu so I used uNetbootin, but there are plenty of options out there, so feel free to use whatever you are comfortable with.
Next we plug in both usb drives to the RPI and boot it, during boot we want to get mash the Escape key to get into UEFI setup.
Once in, navigate to Device Manager -RPi Configuration- Advanced Configuration. Here we want to disable the Limit to 3GB.
After disabling the 3GB limit, head back to the main screen and go into Boot Manager
Select the usb drive that has the ESXi on Arm ISO on it.
Now ESXi Installer should start.
The installer is straight forward. The first screens are “nexting” and accepting the EULA. Then you select where ESXi will be installed. In this case it is the blank usb drive attached to the RPi.
Accept the confirmation the drive will be erased, then you should be able to install.
When the installer has completed, you will be prompted to reboot
After a reboot, you will be able to change the root password, then you should be able to log into your new RPI ESXi Installation!!
Have fun!!
