Running Hass.IO & Hass OS on VMWare ESXI 7.0

Having had some issues properly running Hass OS on ESXI, I decided to create this short guide! It’s important to convert the VMDK to one that can be used for snapshotting and other ESXI Features.

Please follow the below steps (and as outlined in the video) in the correct order. I’ve had some issues making changes along the way and was unable to rectify them later on.

  1. Download the VMDK file: https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/installation/
  2. use 7-zip (or another tool- to extract the VMDK from the archive
  3. Upload the VMDK file to a separate folder on your chosen datastore
  4. Enable SSH on your ESXI host and navigate to the VMDK file just uploaded.
  1. Copy the VMDK file to a usable format
  1. You can remove your original VMDK if you would so desire
  2. Now create your virtual machine, keeping in mind following elements
    1. Remove the original drive
    2. Remove the SCSI adapter (and optionally the CD/DVD Drive)
    3. Add a new existing drive, using your new VMDK file as target
    4. Choose “IDE Controller 0” as the controller location
    5. Make sure the firmware is set to EFI and de-select “Enable UEFI secure boot”
  3. Ready to start op the VM!

Now it’s all about waiting and letting your VM install Homeassistant. I would suggest to also increase the drive size to at least 8GB to allow for updates in the future. You can go bigger if you’d need it!

I hope this guide has allowed you to run your very own Homeassistant instance on ESXI. Allowing to use the snapshot feature makes updates less stressful and allows for errors. I am absolutely in love with it!

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6 Responses

  1. Pospa says:

    Amazing, this is exactly what I needed! I already gave up installing Hassos on my ESXi and installed it in Docker only to realize, that Docker version doesn’t support many features. And today I found your tutorial, worked like charm for the first try, so thanks! I will definitely check more tutorials on your page.

  2. Tamaditex says:

    For some reason I do not get this to work using ESXi 7.0 and following the described procedure but with latest available hassos_ova-5.12.vmdk file. It gives following error when using EDI “Failed to establish transport connection (9): There is no VMware process running for config file /vmfs/”….”.vmx.”. It does not start when using SCSI either as it goes the PXE boot screen.

  3. mmenzie says:

    hello…. i hope you still check your posts. I read through the guide and i have a question. You say to download the correct VMDK file and then convert it to a vmdk that can be snapshotted. the issue i have is if you click the link and go to the HomeAssistant site, the recommended download for VMWare ESXi is actually an OVA file and not a VMDK file. so which one should i download?

    • Triplus says:

      Hi

      I still read the posts.
      However, I’m afraid I moved away from ESXI towards proxmox. Also this guide is rather old so things might have changed.
      It seems importing an OVA is rather easy, but there might be some extra steps required.

      Good luck on your search!

      • mmenzie says:

        i had found this article AFTER i had HA already running and got the error when my server was powered off hard due to a power outage. so i was thinking of re-doing it cause i can’t snapshot my current install and i am pretty sure i started it from an OVA but it still created a VMDK but this VMDK cannot be snapshotted when i tested that today.

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