Installation guide

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VMware ESX Server Administration Guide
Characteristics of the VMware Service
Console
The purpose of the VMware service console is to start up and administer your virtual
machines. It is a customized version of Linux based on the Red Hat 7.2 distribution. It
has been modified so it can be managed by the VMkernel.
The service console has been customized to disable unneeded services. In particular,
most network services have been disabled, except for auth. For remote access to the
service console, ssh is enabled by default. The root user can modify settings for ssh,
Telnet and FTP using the security configuration page in the management interface
(http://<servername>/security-config).
The service console is scheduled by the VMkernel just as any other virtual machine is.
You should not attempt to run heavy workloads on the service console, because it
may take processor cycles away from your virtual machines.
Using DHCP for the Service Console
The recommended setup is to use static IP addresses for the service console. It is also
possible to set up the service console to use DHCP, so long as your DNS server is
capable of mapping the service console’s host name to the dynamically-generated IP
address.
If your DNS server cannot map the host’s name to its DHCP-generated IP address,
which may be the case, you must determine the service console's numeric IP address
yourself and use that numeric address when accessing the management interface’s
Web pages.
Keep in mind that the numeric IP address may change as DHCP leases run out or
when the system is rebooted. For this reason, we do not recommend using DHCP for
the service console unless your DNS server can handle the host name translation.
Caution: Do not use dynamic (DHCP) addressing when sharing the network adapter
assigned to the Service Console with Virtual Machines. ESX Server requires a static IP
address for the Service Console when sharing a network adapter.