Follow the procedures in this section to install VMware ESXi on each of the servers that will be part of the compute cluster. You can install ESXi remotely through the iDRAC web interface or locally. These procedures provide the steps for remote installation.
Caution: When you upgrade VMware ESXi hosts within the VMware Cloud Foundation VI workload domain, hosts requiring custom FC vSphere Installation Bundles (VIBs) might be overwritten, potentially causing an outage. For more information, see the VMware KB article How to upgrade ESXi hosts in VMware Cloud Foundation 3.5 with a vendor-specific ISO image (65047).
Configure the BIOS settings and connect to the iDRAC:
The default credentials are:
racadm set bios.sysprofilesettings.WorkloadProfile VtOptimizedProfile
racadm jobqueue create BIOS.Setup.1-1
The default credentials are:
For each iDRAC, ensure that pop-up support is enabled in your browser.
This location must be available throughout the installation of ESXi on all servers.
To boot to the installation media, from the Virtual Console menu bar, select Power > Power on System; alternatively, if the power is already on, select Power > Power Cycle System (cold boot). After the server reboots, the ESXi installer begins to load.
To install ESXi on the compute cluster, follow the steps in Install VMware ESXi on the management cluster.