ESXi5.1 in Virtualbox

First create a VM in Virtualbox with the following settings. All other setting are in the default state

Here select “Type” as Linux and “Version” as Linux 2.6.

 

Here select 2 GB memory. This is the minimum requirement for ESXi.

Here select 2 CPUs. This is the minimum requirement for ESXi.

Here I have set 8 GB for disk. It is more than enough. If you want you can set it to 2 GB.

After creating the VM now mount the ESXi iso as the CD drive for the VM in virtualbox. Now start the VM. It will boot from the CD and display the initial screen as shown below.

ESXi boot menu

On pressing enter in the above screen will take you to the next screen, which shows the loading of ESXi installer.

The loading of ESXi installer continues here

In this screen the ESXi installer is asking the users permission to continue with the installation

On pressing enter in the above screen, you will be taken to the License Agreement screen as shown below. Here you should press “F11” to accept the license agreement. Then only you would be able to continue to the next screen.

In this screen as shown below the ESXi installer is scanning for medias to find out a suitable media for installation.

After scanning for medias, the installer will list out the medias it found suitable for installing ESXi. See the below screen, where it lists the local Hard Disk.

On pressing enter it will take the user to the next screen where it will ask about the Keyboard Layout to be selected. Press enter after selecting the correct keyboard layout.

The next screen will ask for the “root” password. Enter the root password of your choice here

After successfully entering the password in both fields it will show a message stating whether it is matching or not. If OK press “Enter” key to continue.

After that the installer will spend some time to gather the additional information about the system.

Then it will display the screen stating Hardware virtualization is not enabled. This will appear only when you install the ESXi in Virtualbox. This won’t appear in case of a physical machine, if you have enabled Hardware virtualization in BIOS. Just press “Enter” to go to the next screen

Now the installation of ESXi starts.

This screen shows that the installation has been completed and you need to reboot the system. Press “Enter” to reboot the system.

After rebooting a screen as shown below will appear. Now the installation is complete.