Luckily, a Macbook can whip up a web server in a few clicks.

Just go to System Preferences – Sharing, and check off “Web Sharing”

In your /Users/username/Sites folder, copy the VMware folder from the ESX Server 3.5 CD.

When you boot from the ESX 3.5 Server CD, choose HTTP install and enter in the IP of your Mac and the folder.  In my case, http://192.168.1.100/~ken is inputted as the following.

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Unlike Windows, the Mac doesn’t really have a nice SCP client like WinSCP.  So we are left with the commandline or Fugu.

For those afraid of the unix command line, you can also use Fugu to scp files to and from the ESXi server.

Use the SCP option in the menu

Enter the appropriate details

Fugu isn’t as scary as the unix prompt and still very useful.

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Here’s how you enable it.

1. Press ALT+F1
2. Type “unsupported”
   Hit “Enter”
   
3. Log in
4. Edit the inetd.conf file by typing, “vi /etc/inetd.conf”
   Press “/” key
   Type in “ssh”
   Move cursor over to #
   Press “x”
   Press “Shift+:”
   Type “wq“
5. Find “inetd” service #
   Type “ps | grep inetd”
   Type “kill -HUP ####“
6. Done!

Now you can log in via SSH with your favourite client.  In my case I use Terminal on a Mac with the following command:

ssh root@192.168.1.55

With SSH enabled you can have limited access to the service console.  You can’t really install anything like the full blown ESX but it’s still very useful for SCP.

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Let’s say you want to copy an ISO file to your datastore on your ESXi server so you can install an OS with it.

Open up a Terminal window and type:

scp WinXP.iso root@192.168.1.33:/vmfs/volumes/vmstore/ISO

This will do just that.  I average about 4MB/s writing to the datastore with my Macbook’s 100Mbit connection.

To do the reverse and copy a file to your Mac, you type:

scp root@192.168.1.33:/vmfs/volumes/vmstore/ISO/filename.iso /Users/name/Desktop

You obviously have to make the necesary changes to your IP address and datastore name.

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Here is what I used and costs:

Asus P5QL Pro ($100)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz ($200)
8GB RAM (4x2GB) OCZ ($20/2GB)
LSI MegaRAID 150-D SATA controller (already had)
2x 1Gb Intel 1000 Pro NICs (already had)
4x160GB SATA drives in Raid5 (already had)
256MB PCIe video card ($30)
SATA DVDRW (already had)
1GB Patriot USB thumb drive (to hold ESXi) (already had)
Case (already had)

As you can see, it doesn’t cost whole lot to make a decently spec’d ESXi server.  I spent around $500.

After I got all the parts, setting up a ESXi was a total breeze.  I downloaded ESXi from VMware for free.  Then I imaged it to the USB thumb drive.   After booting it up, I was able to add a datastore from the VMware VI client.

Things to note, the P5QL Pro’s onboard NIC and SATA do not work with ESXi.  Hence the reason for my LSI and Intel NICs.  Other than that, everything is perfect.

The OCZ RAM I bought claimed to be DDR-800 but it wouldn’t run at 800mhz.  I had to clock it down to 667mhz or else ESXi would crash.

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