ESXi on Hetzner Part 2

Today, after having to wait for my new subnet over the weekend, I was continuing my journey to ESXi VMs on a Hetzner root server.

It became clear to me that I need ANOTHER IP, as mentioned in several guides. Reason for that is that the ESXi host won’t work as a router (its IP is for management only)

So one guide that has proven to be very useful was this one:

https://nickcharlton.net/posts/configuring-esxi-6-on-hetzner.html

It helped me setting up the virtual switches and subnets – and now I seem to be stuck with the fact that I ordered the subnet FIRST and so all requests to this subnet are sent to the “main esxi ip” and I had to send another support request… Standing by…

ESXi 6.5 on a Hetzner root server EX51

tl;dr

When installing ESXi on a Hetzner Root Server, tell tech support what you are trying to do and they will be helpful and your job will be much easier.

New machine

To replace my very old root server, I ordered a brand new root server with www.hetzner.de. At the time of writing, this EX51 is configured with:

  • Intel® Core™ i7-6700 Quad-Core
  • 64 GB DDR4 RAM
  • 2 x 4 TB SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 rpm HDD

To get the machine running with ESXi (which does not support software RAIDs, so a Hardware RAID Controller is necessary) I added those options to the machine.

According to the price policy of Hetzner, this “Flex-Option” (= anything to add to the machine) comes with 15€/month + 25/month for the controller. Nice sum…

Try to install via KVM console

My first attempt to follow the docs did not work out. I did get the KVM console attached by hetzner’s techs and was able to boot from the provided ISO, but ESXi 6.5 does not support the built-in adaptec RAID controller by its own – so I got stuck there, not being able to install ESXi to the machine.

Searching the web I found some old post where someone mentioned that Hetzner would be able to supply a “preconfigured ESXi” (did not find anything like that on their wiki, though…)

Support request

So I sent a support request to hetzner’s tech team, asking for advice. Even on a Saturday morning, within a couple of minutes, tech support replied. Preconfiguration was not available anymore, but “without any warranty” they can boot the machine with an ISO that already contains the driver.

So they plugged in the USB stick with the image and added a KVM console again. Booting took much less time from USB and the whole thing was done within a couple of minutes…