Thanks mightymouse. Easy to miss in a 350+ post thread. Maybe a mod could edit the original post so it's easy to find?
I've done some testing and it works. What matters most is that the VM is booted from a host that has the SLIC-modified BIOS. As long as it boots from a host with modified BIOS, it works fine. I've just tested the following scenarios using VMware ESXi 5.1U2: host esxi1: non-modified / standard BIOS host esxi2: modified BIOS (I'm using the HP SLIC BIOS as all my physical servers are HP) VM has valid certificate and product key installed. Boot VM from esxi1: VM is not activated. Migrate VM which booted from esxi1 onto esxi2: VM is not activated. Boot VM from esxi2: VM is activated. Migrate VM which booted from esxi2 onto esxi1: VM remains activated. So if you have multiple hosts and use vMotion, you have to modifiy the BIOSes of all the hosts to ensure that machines will remain activated no matter which host they boot from
Good information, but somehow - I always knew all of that to be true, it just makes sense since the host is giving the machine the SLIC. FYI - my setup is two hosts running 5.5 and just in case someone is interested, it installs and works perfectly with 5.5 too. VMotion, DRS - all works normally. The only gotcha which I found way back in this thread is to run the bios tools from your local hard drive, not from a network share - or the install script errors out. Yeah you need to have it on every host but it installs and works perfectly on every versions of ESXi back to 4.1 that I have tested. Moose
Hi, I have been lurking here for a while.... But I am trying to mod the ESXi VM bios for something else. I would like to set a passed through PCIe video card to be the primary graphics adapter. But, all the bios mega packs and everywhere else I get one from does not have the option in the menu. I succeeded in crippling the vmware svga, so I get a blank screen in MKS. But I would like to be able to ideally boot even a dos VM and have it run on the PCIe GPU. I am passing through a HD6450, HD4650, and Nvidia FX5200. In case I have to put the gpu bios in the bios somehow? I know it's off topic, but ANY help or direction where to look or how to attack this would be appreciated. Thanks!
Hmm, although I have this working, it seems I often need to run it twice on a host for it to "stick", and I haven't been able to identify why that's the case. Both times, I do exactly the same procedure and of course I reboot after the first to notice it didn't work, try a second time and after a second reboot, it does work.
Updated ESXi 5.1.0 U2 to ESXi 5.5.0 U2 (Build 1331820) Applied again quick tutorial (see previous post) using now vmware_bios_mega_pack_385d Guest VM Windows 7 Professional x86 DELL - OEM still activated Tag: ESXi 5.5.0 U2 (Build 1331820)
Does ESXi 5.5.0 U2 (Build 1331820) still use 385d or you just apply older BIOS to never build? (making something possibly not work as expected in the process?) sebus
Has anyone tried the tool with the pre-release versions of 6 yet? They ran an open beta for a while. The final version should be coming fairly soon Edit: Figured I'd just answer my own question: View attachment 33549
v2.1.1 has be re-upped on the first post after disappearing during the mishap. Confirmed working with 6.0U2 and probably works with 6.5. Please report back here with your findings, positive or negative.
Hi Pix, I'm having trouble extracting the bios440.rom, I have ESXi 6.5.0 4564106, when I run EsxBiosTools V2.1.1 I get the following output, please could you assist (apologies for the below, I cant screenshot): 14/12/2016 22:45 Getting bios440.rom from remote server -------------------------------------- VMware ESXi 6.5.0 build-4564106 ESXi server detected. This could take a while... Cleaning up temp files # rm -R "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/" # rm -R "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/tmp/" Creating temp folders to unpack s.v00 # mkdir "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/" # mkdir "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/tmp/" # mkdir "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/tmp/vmvisor-sys/" Copying s.v00 from Bootbank folder # cp /bootbank/s.v00 "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/sys.gz" Gunzipping sys.gz to vtar file # gunzip "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/sys.gz" Converting vtar to tar using vmtar # vmtar -x "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/sys" -o "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/sys.tar" invalid vmtar magic '��J���%t7&�Q���YVG�]�ԩ[TCe��*��Zil��a� [ ("��m��1Wx9�Y�ؖ����[�CK ���X�b۔y�bh|@h-� e�]��d��Nx����m/#S-��ֵU��k}ԑ �N���cCo �w0C����b!�OnV �Bd�2�����ag�T����8\�g��F�h@8��Mk] $�˂\,�� @�"Z�i��H�/ c���iO�av̚�:�2�*�m��i��N�r��H��T' Untarring files to /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys # tar xf "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/vmvisor-sys/sys.tar" -C "/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/tmp/vmvisor-sys/" tar: short read Getting host fingerprint Error getting host fingerprint Getting vmx using scp Error transferring vmx file: Operation failed and took 81.54 secs Thanks
It looks like the tool doesn't work with ESXi 6.5. I built a server the other day and tried and get the same error you posted. It does work with the latest patch for 6.0 though. Cheers Andy
Thanks for bringing this to light. There is now an intermediate step required between "Gunzipping sys.gz to vtar file" and "Converting vtar to tar using vmtar". The file needs to be xz uncompressed and the corresponding reverse step needs to be added when the vmx file is injected. The beauty of the json setup is that anyone can implement this so I'll leave it as "an exercise for the reader". edit: It's not as simple as it first looked. s.v00 is now a gz wrapped xz archive with a signature (/usr/share/weasel/s.sigblob) appended. Unless the signature check isn't yet implemented or there is an easy way to disable it, the method we currently use is dead for v6.5+.