My
Dell PowerEdge R220 wasn’t showing me any stats about my server components inside vSphere, even with the Dell Customized ESXi 6.5 ISO.

So I took to installing the OpenManage 8.4 VIB, similar to my 8.4 install on 5.5

First, I’m noting that there isn’t a release of the VIB for 6.5 that I can find, so I used Dell OpenManage 8.4 VIB for ESXi 6.0 with success.

UPDATE 4/28/2017: Dell has released OMSA 8.5 and a VIB for ESXi 6.0-6.5.

UPDATE 2/28/2017: The 6.5 VIB is available from Dell (thanks, MikeyRod1981), although I have not tested this yet:
http://vmwaredepot.dell.com/DEL/6.5/vib20/OpenManage/


Here’s my ESXi host after a fresh Dell Customized 6.5 install:

Most of the components aren’t reading correctly. I rebooted a few times to see if this would kick in, but it didn’t.

After installing the VIB, this screen shows me the proper readings.

[Scroll to bottom of this post to see]

 


Anyways, to install this VIB and clean up these areas, first download the 6.0 VIB from Dell.

UPDATE: The 6.5 VIB (i have not tested) can be downloaded here:

http://vmwaredepot.dell.com/DEL/6.5/vib20/OpenManage/cross_dell-openmanage-esxi_8.4.0.ESXi650-0000.vib

 


 

You’ll need to SSH into your host and execute a command to install this VIB.

SSH must be enabled on your hypervisor

  1. Upload the ZIP to your datastore
  2. Login via SSH to host
  3. Execute the installation
  4. Wait 2-5min (or until prompted)
  5. Reboot host

To execute the installation:

esxcli software vib install -d  /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/OM..

After typing OM (don’t enter ..) immediately hit <TAB> on your keyboard and it will enter the rest of the file name. I’d rather not type that all out anyways.

This should take a couple minutes, then reboot the host and you’re okay.

 

After it booted back up, I checked my components and their readings:

 

 

It works!

Now my hypervisor is in-tune with its hardware and furthermore I can utilize Dell OpenManage Server Administrator to manage the system.

 


 

Since this is ESXi 6.0 VIB on ESXi 6.5, I can’t provide support or guarantee functionality of this in production.

If there are any issues or feedback I would love to hear.


9 Comments

Frank · July 24, 2017 at 7:23 pm

So how do you utilize Dell Server Administrator now? Where is it installed?

Mike · April 13, 2017 at 1:16 am

I have been trying to install this VIB using the commands above. I continue to get the error:
[StatelessError]
The transaction is not supported: VIB Dell_bootbank_OpenManage_8.5.0.ESXi650-2372 cannot be live installed.

Is there a way to enable live install? I am booting from a USB (8gb) with lots of free space.

MikeyRod1981 · February 28, 2017 at 10:42 am

Thanks for the write up, Tyler. I just wanted to share that I was provided this URL by DELL support for the OMSA 8.4 for ESXi 6.5:

http://vmwaredepot.dell.com/DEL/6.5/vib20/OpenManage/

Since it’s on DELL’s VIBs depot, I’d imagine the above download link should work for a while.

    tyler · February 28, 2017 at 11:19 am

    Thanks for sharing this. I’ve updated the article with your contribution.

    MikeyRod1981 · February 28, 2017 at 12:23 pm

    I forgot to mention that if you use the VIB for 6.5 from the link I provided, since it’s just the VIB file and not a ZIP, the command changes slightly as you’ll need to use -v and not -d as your command shows above.

    for example, esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/datastore01/cross_dell-openmanage-esxi_8.4.0.ESXi650-0000.vib

    MikeyRod1981 · February 28, 2017 at 12:37 pm

    You’re welcome, Tyler.

    I wanted to also mention that I installed this VIB today for a customer and though the Open Manage Administrator can’t be logged onto directly on the host (i.e. https://hostname:1311), if you want to see the web UI of OMSA on the server, you need to install OMSA on a Windows Machine and at the logon page of OMSA, click on “Manage Remote Node” on the bottom and then you can enter the ESXi hostname/IP, credentials and check the “Ignore Certificate Warnings” box. Step 6 of this article from DELL is what I’m referring to:

    http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/HOW10613/how-to-install-openmanage-server-administrator-(omsa)-on-vmware-to-collect-logs?lang=EN

How to install Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 8.5 on VMWare ESXi 6.0/6.5 – Tyler N. Woods · April 27, 2017 at 10:02 pm

[…] recently wrote an article on installing OMSA 8.4 VIB on ESXi 6.5 and also installing OMSA 8.4 VIB on ESXi 5.5 — Sometime between then and now, Dell […]

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