I have to say I was late to the party on this one – initially saying to myself – “Why would I want this when I can connect via vCenter or vSphere C# Client?” – well that’s exactly the reason why you would want it! You do not have to install C# client any more and if for some reason you cannot connect to vCenter, then you can still have some way to connect directly to your hosts. Anyway, what is ESXi Embedded Host Client 5.0 I hear you ask – well:
ESXi Embedded Host Client is written purely in HTML and JavaScript, and is served directly from your ESXi host and should perform much better than any of the existing solutions. Please note that the Host Client cannot be used to manage vCenter.
Basically it’s a lite version of vSphere C# client (the one which you install on your Windows environment)!
Setup
“How do I get my hands on it?!” I hear you ask – well it is very simple and straightforward actually. While you have a few ways of doing it, my favourite is simply SSH into your vSphere ESXi host and paste the following command – esxcli software vib install -v http://download3.vmware.com/softwa
re/vmw-tools/esxui/esxui-XXXXX.vib
- Go to https://labs.vmware.com/flings/esxi-embedded-host-client and copy the direct VIB URL (you might have to download it and then copy the link address from Downloads)
- SSH into your ESXi host
- Download & install the VIB
esxcli software vib install -v http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/esxui/esxui-3530266.vib
- Result
- Now browse to https://<vSphereESXiHostIP>/ui/ and voila:
