In this new blog I will tell you how I did install the base of my new homelab. In my first blog on my HomeLab I did show the equipment what I did use for this homelab.
Check this blog.
Base install
My new homelab is based on a single host with VMware ESXi 7.0 and on that host I will run a 3 node nested ESXi environment for testing VMware products.
The base install was a ESXi 7.0 installation on the satadom of the SuperMicro E300. The make of this host is ESXi00. Within the host I make 5 datastores.
* one datastore of the 2TB NVME (for vm’s)
* three datastore(s) of the 1TB NVME (here I will place the VMDK for the capacity tier for VSAN. Size 990GB each disk)
* one datastore of the 500GB NVME (here I will place 3 VMDK disk for the cache tier for VSAN. Size 150GB each disk)
As base network I did renamed the default network to HomeLab.
To build this Nested HomeLab I did make a new vswitch and I will create some new portgroups to that vswitch, this is running full nested without connection to the outside. For the connection to the outside I use a virtual Router. For this I use PFSense. In this nested HomeLab I use VLAN tags.
The PFsense firewall has 2 networks card.
One NIC is for the upload to the outside netwerk (WAN), the second nic is connected to the vswitch. In the PFsense firewall I make make for the different network a VLAN interface.
On the ESXi00 host I make four vm’s. The three are Nested ESXi vm’s and the one is vCenter server.
The four Nested ESXi vm’s are connected to the management network. The vCenter server is also connected to the management network.
The management network is a VLAN interface on the PFsense. Extra I did make a VSAN network and a vMotion network. All this a are VLAN’s. After the network setup is completed, start the configuration wizard the create a cluster and the the distributed switch. If the wizard is done you have a full nested vSAN ESXi cluster running.
Here is the design how it looks.