Network Engineer's ESXi Server Build: Part 1 - iDrac7 and Raid Configuration
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Welcome to Network Engineer Pro. I'm Rafael, CCIE 64356. Have you ever wanted to build your own virtualization server so you can studying for certs like the CCNA, CCNP and CCIE? Or easily run CML, GNS, EVE-NG, Automation, CSR1000v and more? If so then
check out part 1 of my journey to build a virtualization beast for network engineers, it's easy and I want to show you all the steps in the process.
I purchased this used Dell PowerEdge R620 from newegg.
www.newegg.com/Server-Worksta...
Don't forget to check out my site and follow Network Engineer Pro on Facebook.
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The CCNA 200-301 Official Cert Guide Volume 1
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For those of you who want to take your studies to the CCIE level, here are the first two books(of many) you should get your hands on.
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00:00 Intro
01:47 Server overview/tour
05:09 iDrac7 Configuration
07:38 iDRAC GUI Login and overview
09:04 Access the virtual console
09:58 Configure storage in RAID-5
14:33 Outro
In today's video which is part 1 of 3, I am taking my new to me, Dell PowerEdge R620 and prepping it for an ESXi 6.7 installation. The end goal is to turn this server into a virtualization beast for network engineers to handle CML, GNS, EVE-NG, Automation, CSR1000v and more. I want to show you all the steps in the process. This is a 3 part mini series.
Part 1 (this video) includes IDRAC7 configuration and Raid setup.
Part 2 is downloading and installing ESXi 6.7
• Network Engineer's ESX...
Part 3 is creating a VM and installing EVE-NG Community Edition.
• Network Engineer's ESX...
How to import Cisco Modeling Labs (CML) IOSv Router & Switch images into EVE-NG
• How to import IOSv Rou...
I start by configuring the servers IDRAC7 port. Once the server is reachable on my network I configure my four 600GB hard drives in a Raid 5. This allows me to tolerate a single hard drive failure.
So let me tell you why I am building this server.
The reason I got this server is because I'm a network engineer, I'm constantly testing and labbing things out for work, studying for certifications or i just straight up forgot how something works so i go an lab it out.
I use a combination of csr1000v's, cisco modeling labs, eve-ng and all kinds of other things. I was running all those on VMware workstation player, which is a type 2 hypervisor installed on my windows 10 pc.
That windows 10 pc is also used for video editing, photoshop and gaming and it was just starting to be too much for it and i was running out of resources.
So I wanted to get something dedicated just for networking and labbing purposes that I don't have to worry about running out of resources for hopefully a long time.
#CCNA #CCNP #CCIE - Наука та технологія
this is the kind of network videos i have been wanting for ages....live demo👌
I love to do live demos and labs in my videos. Thanks for watching!
Great bro!!!
Fabulous.
Truly glad to you for this lecture about Esxi installation process for network engineer.
Good luck from India 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
Good for me to land on this channel !! Its time to learn learn learn!! woohoo.. Im so excited.!!
Welcome!
I can appreciate this video and your skills and wisdom. You explained steps so well and is understandable for engineers of all levels. Be proud and continue making videos like this if you can.
Hi, thanks a ton for checking out the video and feedback i really appreciate it. Glad it was helpful. And def more videos coming.
Very well, just in love with dell server , Please make a video on accessing Esxi remotely, for instance if a I have a server in Texas and my friends in New york wants to access same ESXI, that would be great and I would like to thank you and Appreciate for this hard work
That is a good idea thanks for the suggestion and thanks for watching!
Outstanding video!
Thank you!
Rafael this is fantastic thanks for sharing your knowledge in the space😊
Your very welcome! Thanks for watching.
You got yourself a sub!
Great quality. Flow and rythme are good.
Thanks so much. And welcome!
I am in the process of moving my eve-ng to esxi
I have an IBM system x 3650
768gig ram
7.2TB SAS
72 cores
Dang thats a beast!
thank you so much really!!!
You're welcome thanks for watching.
excellent❤
Thank you for watching!
Is it good practice to use in production server 4 hdd in raid 5. Or we should use 2 SSDs mirrored for esxi and other drives in raid 5 for storage.
Also we can install esxi on sd card or flash drive??
Great video! Question...I just got an R710, followes your steps, except I statically assigned and IP and confirmed I am able to ping. However, I cant access it via any of my web browser due to the same error about unsecure connection type due to the webpage not using a secure protocol to connect. Any workarounds for this? Or am I going to have to connect a monitor and configure some settings in the DRAC OS? Thanks!
Hey ! Thanks for your video, good quality and clear... i'm thinking to buying one of these just for your videos... but I have a question I hope you can help me... do you think this server is enought for virtualize ISE and Windows Server at the same to really build a good lab?
Hi Carlos, Yea its more than enough. I downloaded the ISE 3.0 ova today and got it running just to test. I left the default OVA settings of 16gb ram, 4 vCPU and 300gb for storage. After basic install/setup and logging in there are plenty of resources left for other things. In my specific server build it uses 2-5% of my CPU and around 12% of total memory. Hope that helps and thanks for watching!
what min specs for a home PC would you rec to run VMARE/ EVE-NG?
how do I access the ESXI web interface from outside the network? port number for forwarding? please assist
Thank you for the video. Could you make a video how to install eve-ng on bare metal?
Hello Sir, wonderful walkthrough.
I am planning your go for R630, but my concern is how much is the power consumption?
Is it too much ?
Hi my friend. I will be honest i dont know how much power it consumes. For me, i dont keep it on 24/7. When its not being used, its off.
This is great, thank you! The one I am looking at has iDRAC 7 Express. Any thoughts on that if I am not overly concerned about remote access?
Hey Rob, you’re welcome. I dont think its a big deal if you dont care about remote access. Honestly the used server i bought listed only the express but it came with enterprise so maybe you will get lucky.
Same here - I got my R620 from NewEgg and it came with an enterprise IDRAC 7. It's handy to have a 4x 1GB NIC (there's another version that's better - 2x 10GB and 2x 1GB). Plus the IDRAC is nice to have - let's you remotely start, stop, monitor, and manage.
upgrade to iDrack7 enterprise, it's just a software key to unlock.
Hi Rafael. Great and very useful videos! I would like to know what rack are you using for this server at home? would be great to have a video on how to establish a remote connection to the server if we physically store it somewhere else. Thanks. Br!
Hey Claudio, sorry for the delay my notifications here are not working right. Thanks for watching. Thats a good idea for a future video! I had an old rack from ebay i was using but it was taking up alot of space so i put it on a spare table in another room. Thats where its been for a while.
@@NetworkEngineerPro thank you very much Rafael, looking forward to that video … I’ve been holding my CCIE prep due to lab environment and this video helped me a lot and encouraged me to move forward.. thanks
hi Rafel, from where you did ping the IP of iDrac? is it from your PC or Server ?
Doesn’t look like Esxi supports software raid perc s110
what server would you recoomend for someone wanting to do similar to you but not need as overkill as the R620 ? BASICALLY JUST FOR EVE-NG
Hi James, how many nodes max do you plan on running in EVE ? Like 20 or less ? Depending on that will determine the RAM and CPU you need.
Please see we you can continue esxi series to clustering etc.
Hi, can you please make a vedio on firmfare and bios update please
I just subscribed.
Thanks, and welcome!
Do you have any suggestions for which dell server I can use?
It really all depends on your budget. For under $1000 I got my Dell PowerEdge R620 from NewEgg. I think it was $600 and I love it.
Hey Rafael, Great video! I am using a R720 server with iDRAC 7 Express. I connected it to the network but DHCP is not getting an IP from the network. I am a beginner and any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you in advance !
Hmm, can you try plugging a laptop or something to that same cable and see if that device gets an ip? I had an issue on mine where the port on the nic died. If the new the new device u connected gets an ip then the issue is the server. Might have to try a diff port. Hope that helps and thanks for watching!
@@NetworkEngineerPro Sorry to take long to respond!! Thank you for your valuable input :) My VGA to HDMI cable was bad and couldn't see the initial setup and got skip to the life cycle controller. I bought a VGA to VGA cable and now it worked.. Initially I thought its not a VGA issue as I am able to see something on my screen but with your suggestion I thought of changing my cable and bhoom!! I was able to see idrac settings to set it up. Thank you again for your valuable time!!
@@vidyadhari4591 awesome glad everything is working !
Rafael como estas? I have a R630, I want to do this as well to add to my homelab, should I go with the 600GB or can I go higher? I have a MD 1220 DAS, should I use it with my R630 or with a R420 that i have?
Hey bien, bien my friend. Sounds like you have a good hardware. I think it all depends on what your plan do with it. I think 600GB is good amount. If you can get a few more and make them redunant it's even better. What kind of stuff are you looking to lab ?
@@NetworkEngineerPro Well I want to practice windows server, Cisco and VMWare. I want to get those cents in the future. I was thinking to install TrueNAS in my Dell and connect my PowerVault MD1220 with a few disk and make it sort of a NAS. I I have a Cisco router and switches that I can use to learn and practice Cisco stuff. I can use the Dell R630 with ESXi and virtualize windows server and practice both virtualization and Networking administration. I have an old Dell 2900 tower that I don’t know what to do with is since it’s very old.
hey , I am currently studying for ccie . Can i lab up the whole blueprint ( except DNAC , SDA stuff ) in ibm x3650 m3 ??
Config - 96 gb ram ( can be upgraded to 288 gb)
2 x intel xeon e5645
2 x 300gb sas harddisk
Hey Alok, I think that server should work for a lot of the blueprint. What are you using to study, EVE-NG, GNS3, ect?
@@NetworkEngineerPro EVE-NG
Hi bro i am new subscriber 🤗
Welcome to the channel!
Just came across this on a random playlist, and thought it was a pretty well put together video. You got a sub from me for how well it's done, and how well you explain everything. The only thing I would have done different would be keep those 2 x 300GB as a RAID 1 (Mirror) for the ESXi install, and an ISO folder for storing ISO files, and then had the 4 x 600GB as the RAID 5 for your VMs.
i have 18 disk 4T Each how do i do my raid?
I think the process should be similar do you see all the disks when you try?
Hello, I was wondering if you bought the hard drives during some promotion? I checked on amazon and on the water panther website, but couldn't find any 2.5 HDD 600GB for $40; they are list for $60. Please advise and thanks for sharing!
Hey I double checked my order. I didn’t see any promotion mentioned but it does look like they went up a little bit. Mine were $44.99 each when i got them, now they are $60 like you said. Dang
@@NetworkEngineerPro yeah, that's what I thought! I guess your channel/video did the marketing lol but thanks for sharing! Would you mind disclosing where did you buy the R260 and how much did get it for?
I am trying to purchase one in the next coming weeks
@@info_9160 No worries, so i first got it from amazon from a vendor "ConfigureSystem" for $450 plus $99 to ship. I purchased the 8 bay but they sent the 10 bay server. 10 bay means no front panel LCD which is what i wanted so i returned it. Ended up getting the 8 bay I wanted with same specs from newegg from the vendor TechMikeNY for $600 which included shipping. Didn't check ebay or other sites to see if they had better deals. If you want the dedicate nic for management or the virtual console feature I think you need the idrac enterprise license, mine came with it but just FYI.
@@NetworkEngineerPro Thank you for getting back to me and thank you for the detailed response.
@@NetworkEngineerPro hello again, did you find the idrac enterprise useful? all the idrac enterprise are kinda expensive. My server will be next to me so I think the enterprise won't be that beneficial. do you think so as well?
I want to build a server that will be a monster for 3D rendering, gaming, website building and running, and running my large programs take a lot of power and resources. I'm a software guy, at least my college experience that is. I do apps currently and build websites. I use my PC and use WAMP for testing sites. Your server seems "out of the box". I'm not a Network Engineer so I'm really out of my depth. I know having a couple high-end GPU's. A case? Power supplies? Boards? RAM of course. And how many CPU's? I guess the sky is the limit. But maybe you could point me in a direction seeing my needs. Oh, I'll probably install Windows 2019 Server and definitely want RAID 5. And I'm not sure how RAID works with booting the computer. My idea is that I will use my PC as a terminal (slave computer?) to sign into my server to do the heavy lifting where my Photoshop and 3D software will be living. I want to use HDD and not SSD. It's a security thing, I don't trust SSD. But I probably want SSD for booting? Like I said, Networking, wayyyyy out of my depth. Thx bro!
Hi Rafael, you have Twitter or LinkedIn? Also I have Eve-Ng Pro and looking to find a small home server that I can run over 100 nodes without a problem. Any suggestions? Also do you plan on making a lab for CCNP/CCIE?
Hi Will, I don't have either but plan to create a LinkedIn one of these days. I do have a FB page. facebook.com/networkengineerpro or you can email me anytime at rafael@networkengineerpro.com. I do plan on doing something for labs, i'll be making an announcement here soon. There's a lot of refurbished servers like a dell r620 that'll be able to run lots of nodes for under $1000, that's what I use. Hope that helps!
Im waiting for my Dell R620. Going to add two 900GB Hard drive with the two they have in there. Hope to be up and running soon. Plus I wonder how the VMware going to work. I see it's only free for 60 days. 😭😭
@@willo7380 Nice! I use the free license and the full features expire after 60 days but you can still keep using it. The downside is for the vm's you're limited to 8vcpu's. If you want to add more vcpu's which might be good for EVE-NG with a lot of nodes then you need to buy a license. I haven't tested running over 100 nodes on an 8vcpu EVE-NG vm but I might just try it.
@@NetworkEngineerPro Thanks. Which HDD did you get from Water Panther to give you RAID 5? or on your Dell PowerEdge you have to pay for that feature?
The 4 i got are 600GB 10K SAS 6Gb/s 2.5" HDD for Dell PowerEdge Servers | Enterprise Drive in 13G Tray. I didn’t have to pay anything to do raid 5, i was able to set it up in the bios right out of the box.