Dell PowerEdge XR4000w Installation and Service Manual

Dell is temporarily stopping the factory installation of Broadcom's VMware ESXi on the Dell PowerEdge XR4000w witness node. This means that the XR4000w server is delivered with a blank M.2 drive and customers need to install ESXi and the witness server VM.

The following high-level steps should be followed to install ESXi onto an XR4000w:

1. Obtain ESXi install media.
2. Install ESXi.
3. Install VMware witness server-specific drivers.
4. Install VMware witness server OVA.

Obtain ESXi install media

• To get access to ESXi images see the link.
• Download the Dell customized image for "VMware VSphere" from the Broadcom support website under the “Custom ISOs” tab. The “Dell Custom Image for ESXi 8.0U2 Install CD” has a filename of VMware-VMvisor-Installer-8.0.0.update02-23305546.x86_64-Dell_Customized-A06.iso and is 615.75 MB. Ensure the integrity of the downloaded image using the md5sum checksum.
• The ESXi ISO needs to be written to a blank USB flash drive that is at least 8GB. See the instructions on the vmware website for creating an installable USB flash drive. Windows tools such as Rufus utility can also be used to create a bootable USB.

Install ESXi

• The witness host only supports headless host OS environments. The ESXi serial port console is available on the micro USB connector. To see the steps to connect to serial port, see connecting to the serial port.

The following values for the "kernelopt" keyword in BOOT.CFG should be added to redirect the ESXi console to the correct hardware serial device and micro USB port on the XR4000w. Be sure to append the text and not overwrite the existing parameters.

text nofb com2_baud=115200 com2_Port=0xe030 tty3Port=com2

Alternatively, the boot options can be modified on the fly by pressing Shift+O during boot.

When the installer is loaded from the USB flash drive, it asks to install ESXi to a boot device. In the case of XR4000w, install ESXi onto the only available option which is the M.2 drive.

It is recommended to keep a reserved partition of 350 GB to 400 GB for the ESXi witness server to store its metadata.

The kernelopt values for the serial port (shown above) should also be added to the ESXi instance installed on the M.2 drive.

Install XR4000w specific drivers

Download the following two drivers (ZIP files) from the Dell PowerEdge XR4000w support page Dell Support page by selecting "VMware ESXi 8.0 as the operating system.

• Dell OS Agent for Witness
• Dell OS Driver for Witness

These drivers are useful as they provide a heartbeat function that reboots a locked XR4000w and also the ESXi host IP information to another XR4000w sled using the iDRAC user interface on a Dell PowerEdge XR4510c or XR4520c server in the same chassis. To install these drivers, see updating witness DOSA-W: ESXi

Once the IP address of the witness server host is known, it can be accessed remotely using SSH. To enable SSH, perform the following steps:

1. Access the Witness OS interface by using the Witness IP captured from the serial connection. Refer screenshot.
2. Go to Actions, select Services Enable Secure Shell (SSH).
3. Go to Actions, select Services Enable ESXi Shell.
4. Access witness with an SSH connection by using witness IP address.

Install VMware witness server OVA

After a successful install and boot of ESXi, the XR4000w host should appear in the VMware host client GUI and the VMware vCenter GUI. At this point the vSAN witness server VM can be installed from vCenter using an OVA file.

Depending upon the vSAN architecture that you use, download either the OSA or ESA witness server VM from the Broadcom support website under the “Drivers and Tools” tab of the vSphere product. The OVA files should be either:

• VMware-VirtualSAN-Witness-8.0U2-22380479.ova
• VMware-vSAN-ESA-Witness-8.0U2-22380479.ova

See the following VMware instructions for installation of the witness OVA file: vmware docs.com. The tiny or medium model is sufficient for two node clusters running on an XR4000 system.

The following document from Dell is a useful addition to the VMware help for configuring a vSAN 2-node cluster with the XR4000w witness server: Dell PowerEdge XR4000 Deployment in a vSAN 2.1 Configuration