In an interactive installation, the system prompts you for the required system information. In a scripted installation, you must supply this information in the installation script.
For future use, note the values you use during the installation. These notes are useful if you must reinstall ESXi and reenter the values that you originally chose.
| Information | Required or Optional | Default | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyboard layout | Required | U.S. English | |
| VLAN ID | Optional | None | Range: 0 through 4094 |
| IP address | Optional | DHCP | You can allow DHCP to configure the network during installation. After installation, you can change the network settings. |
| Subnet mask | Optional | Calculated based on the IP address | |
| Gateway | Optional | Based on the configured IP address and subnet mask | |
| Primary DNS | Optional | Based on the configured IP address and subnet mask | |
| Secondary DNS | Optional | None | |
| Host name | Required for static IP settings | None | The vSphere Web Client can use either the host name or the IP address to access the ESXi host. |
| Install location | Required | None | Must be at least 5 GB if you install the components on a single disk. |
| Migrate existing ESXi settings. Preserve existing VMFS datastore. | Required if you are installing ESXi on a drive with an existing ESXi installation. | None | If you have an existing ESXi 5.x installation, the ESXi installer offers a choice between preserving or overwriting the VMFS datastore during installation |
| Root password | Required | None | The root password must contain between 8 and 40 characters. For information about passwords see the vSphere Security documentation. |
