ESXi trial ending

[Psittac]

I've got a cold so it's hard to research right now.  But my ESXi trial is ending in 3 day's that I got directly from vmware.  Is there a cheap and easy way to upgrade from the trial?

 

I remember that I got a free copy of esxi on my first server from dell directly but I ended up not doing virtual machines on that one.  I could see if this server comes with esxi from Dell but really don't want to go through all of the work of redoing my VM server.  I don't have a vga monitor any more would be one issue.

 

What do you guy's do for ESXi licensing?

[Acedia]

Go to the VMware website, create an account if you don't have one right now, go to the ESXi download page and select the "Licsense & Download" section.

There should be a free license key listed you can enter on your ESXi Web gui under manage > Licensing. The only restriction should be that you can't create backups.

[Psittac]

13 minutes ago, Acedia said:

Go to the VMware website, create an account if you don't have one right now, go to the ESXi download page and select the "Licsense & Download" section.

There should be a free license key listed you can enter on your ESXi Web gui under manage > Licensing. The only restriction should be that you can't create backups.

It's looking like they want me to pay for it, I was only given a trial.  Considering I only have one VM running on it I don't think it's worth it.  I just wanted to future proof it incase I needed to do more than one thing on it.  I guess I will just wipe the server and start fresh, nothing important is on it and it's barely used.

[datboi8192]

Theres always the free KVM (virt-manager / proxmox) and Xen too 

[Razor Blade]

I use the free ESXi license. Just go here... https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor.html

If you don't already have a free account, make one. Log in and download "VMware vSphere Hypervisor 6.7 - Binaries". You will get a 25 character license key (found under your account "license information") which is good for the very basic features. If you do reinstall ESXi you can have fun with the full feature product for the 30 days then put in your key to remove the count down as well as all premium features.

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Psittac said:

It's looking like they want me to pay for it, I was only given a trial.  Considering I only have one VM running on it I don't think it's worth it.  I just wanted to future proof it incase I needed to do more than one thing on it.  I guess I will just wipe the server and start fresh, nothing important is on it and it's barely used.

ESXi has a free license. If you want all the amazing features and it's for home use sign up for VMUG EVALExperience, tens of thousands dollars worth of VMware licenses for $200/yr. Only go down that path if you need the features, I don't think you do.

[NelizMastr]

14 hours ago, datboi8192 said:

Theres always the free KVM (virt-manager / proxmox) and Xen too 

Xen is no longer free, XCP-ng is the free fork of it now

 

17 hours ago, Acedia said:

Go to the VMware website, create an account if you don't have one right now, go to the ESXi download page and select the "Licsense & Download" section.

There should be a free license key listed you can enter on your ESXi Web gui under manage > Licensing. The only restriction should be that you can't create backups.

The free version is hidden somewhat. You need to browse for it specifically.

 

https://my.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=free-esxi6

[bloodthirster]

1 minute ago, NelizMastr said:

Xen is no longer free, XCP-ng is the free fork of it now

 

Xen is open source and free.  Xenserver/Citrix Hypervisor is a product from Citrix. 

[NelizMastr]

Just now, bloodthirster said:

 

Xen is open source and free.  Xenserver/Citrix Hypervisor is a product from Citrix. 

Ah I forgot about Xen, I thought he meant XenServer, which was free until last year.

[bloodthirster]

4 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Ah I forgot about Xen, I thought he meant XenServer, which was free until last year.

He mentioned KVM (which isn't a product) so I don't know.

 

I personally prefer Xen over Xenserver/Citrix Hypervisor mainly due to the fact that I'm used to working with Xen via CLI and not the "fancy" GUI.   Xen is actually pretty easy to install from source too (much easier than qemu and libvirt [libvirt is a nightmare]), if that's your thing.

[NelizMastr]

1 minute ago, bloodthirster said:

He mentioned KVM (which isn't a product) so I don't know.

 

I personally prefer Xen over Xenserver/Citrix Hypervisor mainly due to the fact that I'm used to working with Xen via CLI and not the "fancy" GUI.   Xen is actually pretty easy to install from source too (much easier than qemu and libvirt [libvirt is a nightmare]), if that's your thing.

I prefer not to use CLI if I don't have to. I'm used to ESXi and XenServer which allow full configuration via their WebUI or dedicated management client.

[Jay Deah]

as above. for standalone ESXi there is a FREE license.

 

the EVAL license is equivalent to vSphere Enterprise Plus, which is the full featured version that you wont be using ANY features of if you've only got 1 host. all the paid-for features are around clusters of multiple hosts