Almost 10 years ago, VMware released “VMware Installation Bundle”, or commonly known as VIB, to make it easier for 3rd party and administrators to install software components to their flagship virtualization platform, vSphere ESXi.
The process is quite straight forward and you usually can’t go wrong if you are installing the right VIB for the right version of running ESXi software.
Before proceeding, please observe the following :
- Make sure the VIB is compatible with your ESXi version
- Make sure you have the compatible hardware installed for what you are attempting to install
- Read the VIB documentation (some VIB require the host to be in maintenance mode or require reboot)
- Make sure of the VIB file integrity if md5sum signatures are available
- Only install VIB files that are obtained and issued from trusted source
To install a VIB file, follow these easy steps :
1. Using your favorite SFTP client, upload the VIB file under the following directory :
/tmp
2. Using your favorite SSH client, connect to the host (SSH service may need to be started manually from the vSphere client first) ;
3. Install the VIB file using the following command :
esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/your-vib-file-name.vib
NOTE : You may get the message “Could not find a trusted signer” if the VIB file is not signed from a trusted authority, even though it come from a trusted manufacturer. If you really trust the source, you may override this by appending the option “–no-sig-check” at the end, such as :
esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/your-vib-file-name.vib --no-sig-check
If you get the message “”[Errno 4] IOError: <urlopen error [Errno 2] No such file or directory: ‘/var/log/vmware/your-vib-file-name.vib’>”)”, know that this is common mistake committed when you do not specify the full path to the VIB file, even though you are within the same directory.
VIB can also be installed directly from a URL, however I usually prefer doing a manual upload and validate signatures to avoid any issues.
5. You may list the full list of installed VIB on your host with the following command :
esxcli software vib list