ESX / ESXi Bios Tools

Discussion in 'Virtualization' started by pix, Nov 22, 2009.

  1. pix

    pix MDL Member

    Nov 3, 2008
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    Maybe but I'm a C# / Windows man and don't fancy the learning curve...

    Also, more people have windows boxes than linux on this forum and modding will utimately take place on a windows box.

    It would be fairly trivial to write a linux script to do all this - just look at the commands that are being executed in the log, it's all there.
     
  2. yngdiego

    yngdiego MDL Member

    Feb 14, 2008
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    I'm a Windows guys as well, so doing it in Linux would be a PITA. But if that didn't require SSH, it would be a bonus. However, like you said, the BIOS mod isn't supported anyway so what's the harm in turning on SSH anyways.
     
  3. yngdiego

    yngdiego MDL Member

    Feb 14, 2008
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    Any ETA on the next version of this KILLER app?
     
  4. yngdiego

    yngdiego MDL Member

    Feb 14, 2008
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    Hope the OP is still around..would love a new version of the app!
     
  5. andy87

    andy87 MDL Novice

    Oct 22, 2009
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    Hello,
    I am trying to inject a modified bios into my ESXI 4.0 update 1 machine. I have version 1.0.0.3, but it is crashing when I try to inject my bios. Where can I download the latest version of this tool? Thanks.
     
  6. yngdiego

    yngdiego MDL Member

    Feb 14, 2008
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    Any word from the OP...?
     
  7. Paul Swielingen

    Paul Swielingen MDL Novice

    May 19, 2010
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    ESX(i) bios tools v1.0.1 fails on ESXi 3.5.0 update 5

    Hi,

    I intend to extract the bios from ESXi 3.5.0. update 5 using ESX(i) bios tools v 1.0.1.
    This however does not work. In the output of the tool I can see:
    1) succesfull login
    2) succesfull change directory to /usr/lib/vmware/bin
    3) failing get vmware-vmx
    I logged in as root manually using putty and tried manually. The vmware-vmx file is not in the directory.
    In an attempt to locate the file I did a search of the entire file system for vmware-vmx by:
    cd /
    find . | grep -i vmware-vmx
    with no result.
    It seems like this file does not exist on the file system.
    Anybody has ideas or even a solution?
     
  8. deMarchi

    deMarchi MDL Junior Member

    Nov 7, 2009
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    Update 2 has been released for VmWare 4.0 esx(i). Did anyone try apply it to the patched esx(i)? Does it work then? Does it require re-patch it again?
     
  9. alien2xx

    alien2xx MDL Senior Member

    Aug 5, 2009
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    vSphere ESX version 261974 (update 2)

    ESX Clean install - Running on a dell Optiplex 745 with 8gb of memory...Installed Windows XP vm to run Rw.
    Installed Windows server 2008 R2 to test activation

    Steps: (I used software posted already on this thread)

    First:
    IMPORTANT: ssh to the vmware server and allow root ssh login:
    change from "no" to "yes": PermitRootLogin yes
    # vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
    # ps -ef | grep ssh
    # kill <pid_id> (to kill running ssh service)
    # /usr/sbin/sshd (to restart service)

    Second:
    Software used:

    EsxBiosTools1001 to extract rom bios from vmware.

    RwV1.4 Install rw everything on a vmware machine.
    Press acpi button, wait and
    press save all (ctrl+F2) it will give you acpitbls.rw
    which you use in the phoenix tool.

    phoenixtool100 to edit bios using the above files (acptables.rw, dell certificate,
    dell .bin (from SLIC21 folder)).

    To Test open the new rom with winhex.exe (I used version15.4 evaluation) to verify the slic number.

    Third:
    Run tool to inject back the new rom to vmware esx 4
    "BIOS440_SLIC.ROM"


    When you inject the bios using ESX Bios Tools, the original vmx file is
    backed up so you can restore if it goes wrong. You don't need to rename
    the bios.

    The whole process took me less than 10 minutes (not counting winXP and Server installs).


    Activate windows 2008 R2 std

    1.- Copy DELL.XRM-MS to C:\

    2.- run
    SLMGR.vbs -ILC C:\DELL.XRM-MS
    slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

    It should be activated now...

    Cheers!
     
  10. deMarchi

    deMarchi MDL Junior Member

    Nov 7, 2009
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    probably you could just publish moded bios? because I didn't understand what are RwV1.4 and phoenixtool100 tools.
    is exs bios the same as for esxi for upd2? (bioses were the same in esx and esxi 4.0 up 1)
    thank you!
     
  11. yt2008br

    yt2008br MDL Novice

    Jun 9, 2010
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    Thanks! I needed that.
     
  12. terrafaux

    terrafaux MDL Novice

    Feb 2, 2010
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    I would like to say great Thanks, to all they make it possible to help frustrated noobs (like me) with such easy to use Tools.

    I know it is a hard job to find out new method against much complexe technics.

    Thanks
     
  13. simz_xpc

    simz_xpc MDL Novice

    Aug 4, 2009
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    thanks looking for this.....
     
  14. HSChronic

    HSChronic MDL Expert

    Aug 25, 2007
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    always nice to have tools to mod BIOSes. Thanks for the hard work making this!!
     
  15. wuzy

    wuzy MDL Novice

    Oct 14, 2009
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    File paths have been changed for ESXi 4.1
    So tool doesn't work anymore. :(
     
  16. pix

    pix MDL Member

    Nov 3, 2008
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    Thanks for the heads-up I'll try to look at this over the weekend.
     
  17. wuzy

    wuzy MDL Novice

    Oct 14, 2009
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    Glad you're still around pix!:biggrin:
    Looking forward to the update.
     
  18. jkx

    jkx MDL Novice

    Jan 17, 2010
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    Same here.
    Is there any manual how to insert bios440.slic.rom to 4.1?
     
  19. torx666

    torx666 MDL Novice

    Jul 23, 2010
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    In ESXi 4.1 the file sys.vgz has become s.z in folder hypervisor1. It is still possible to get the vm file. But this one is no longer a elf32 format but a elf64. It seems the version of objdump can not handel this format.