Remote Lab Instructions for vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Labs Only!
This page is for customers who purchased our vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp remote lab rentals. On this page, you will find everything you need to access your labs. If you ever need help accessing the labs, please review the Questions and Support section at the bottom of this page.
Overview
We have provisioned you with a completely isolated and fully dedicated VMware vSphere 7.0 remote access lab environment. This environment is exclusively yours, and is not shared with anyone. It is available for use 24/7 during your lab rental period.
We do not over provision our servers so most lab tasks should complete in reasonable time. Some vSphere 7.0 tasks can take a long time (10-30+ minutes) to complete. Your lab guide will inform you when the task you are doing will need time to complete. An estimate of the approximate wait time will also be given.
Your Local PC
To connect to our labs, you need a Windows, Mac or Linux PC / Notebook with:
- A 1080p display or larger.
A second display will be helpful because you can access our labs on one display while using the second to display our Study / Lab guides. - A quality Internet connection with a minimum of 3Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up
- A network router / firewall that permits outbound RDP connections to our servers using non-standard ports 17000-17050
- Working DNS that can resolve FQDNs on the esxlab.com domain
Note that cell data networks, work networks and highly firewalled networks are unsuitable due to poor network speed / quality (cell networks) or port / packet blocking on work or highly firewalled networks.
If you normally use a work VPN connection, disable this before you attempt to connect to our labs.
Lab Rental Detailed Information
Lab Rental Detailed Information
All lab rentals strictly conform to the following layout:
| Machine / Service | IP Address / Netmask | |
| Default Gateway | 192.168.20.1 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| Active Directory Server for ESXLab.com | 192.168.20.2 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| First ESXi 7.0 host | 192.168.20.51 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| Second ESXi 7.0 host | 192.168.20.52 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| vCenter 7.0 Server | 192.168.20.121 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| Windows / NFS File shares | 192.168.20.17 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| iSCSI SAN - First Interface | 192.168.20.17 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| iSCSI SAN - Second Interface | 192.168.20.19 / 255.255.255.0 | |
| DHCP Lease Range | 192.168.20 140 - 192.168.20.240 / 255.255.255.0 |
Inbound Firewall Rules
All inbound ports are firewall blocked with the exception of the non-standard port used to RDP connect to your labs
Outbound Firewall Rules
All outbound ports are firewalled with the exception of outbound http / https connections. You can perform outbound http / https file transfers but all other methods are blocked.
Connect to and Use our Remote Labs
The e-mail we sent you that contains all of the information needed to access your remote lab environment and includes the following information:
- Your remote lab Windows Domain log in user name which should look like ESXLAB\user#
- Your Windows Domain remote lab password
- Your remote lab's desktop Fully Qualified Name and non-standard port. You will use this information with MS Terminal Services / Remote Desktop Services (RDS) client to access your lab
Your lab configuration consists of the following components:
- One Windows Server 2012 R2 VM that you use for remote access. You will access this VM via MS Remote Desktop Services (with a connection string like pod__.esxlab.com:1700#)
- Two virtual ESXi hosts that are accessible to you only from the (above) remote access VM
Please carefully review the information you received from us in your lab release e-mail. This document provides your user name, password and MS Remote Desktop Services machine IP address and port number (IP:port).
Next, go to Lab 1 in the Lab Guide book, read it carefully and follow the instructions. Lab 1 tells you how to:
- Connect to the remote lab environment
- Log in to your remote access server
- Power on your esx1.esxlab.com ESXi host
- Open a Console on your ESXi hosts and initiate the installation of ESXi 7.0
Preparing to Run Through the Labs
Once you make it to this step... you are ready to go. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when you work with our labs
*Very Important*
Your lab consists of two virtual ESXi hosts. Once you complete the Install ESXi 7.0 lab, your ESXi host will be powered on, configured and set up correctly for networking. Your ESXi hosts will be set up as follows:
- Hostname - Your first ESXi host will be called esx1.esxlab.com. Your second ESXi host will be esx2.esxlab.com
- IP Address - Once fully configured, your first ESXi host will have an IP address of 192.168.20.51. Your second ESXi host will have an IP address of 192.168.20.52
- Password - DO NOT deviate from recommended passwords. If you do, and you forget your password, we CANNOT recover your password for you.
- vCenter Server - Your vCenter Server Appliance will have a FQDN of vcsa1.esxlab.com. The VM's display name will be vCSA 1. The IP address of your vCenter Appliance is 192.168.20.121
Things to Keep In Mind While Doing The Labs
You were provisioned with:
- One remote access Windows Server 2012 VM. This is the only way you can access your labs
- All lab tasks are to be performed in your remote lab environment. With the exception of launching a Microsoft RDS client, your local PC is not used by our labs
- You have two virtual ESXi hosts provisioned. Host esx1.esxlab.com is used throughout the course
- Host esx2.esxlab.com is only used once you get to the VM Migration lab
- At the beginning of the VM Migration lab, you will power on your second ESXi host (esx2.esxlab.com). This host has been pre-built to boot up with correct settings and configurations that are auto-applied.
Tips for Successfully Using Your Labs
Below are some tips to help you get the best out of your remote lab rental:
- Please follow all labs in order. Future labs only work if you have successfully completed all previous labs
- Please do each lab carefully and do not skip over any steps - as this can cause problems later in the same lab or future labs
- Please do not deviate / experiment while doing your labs. Future labs are written assuming you have diligently completed all prior lab tasks. Experimentation may cause future labs to not function as expected.
-
Please resist any temptation to fix the lab environment. In particular, please do not attempt to:
- Patch, update, secure, lock down or upgrade Windows. None of these steps are necessary and doing so may break your lab environment or stop some functions from working properly.
- Activate Windows. We use a 180-day trial license which is more than enough time to complete your labs
- Deviate from recommended passwords. We use esxLab.c0m as a generic password for ESXi, vCenter and other software. We know that this is a bad practice but, it avoids password confusion (which would arise if we used different passwords for each login.
If you deviate from this generic password and you forget the password you selected, our only response will be to wipe and rebuild your labs - meaning you will lose all of your work.
Complete Labs in This Order
Your Boot Camp lab rental includes 5 additional labs not found in our VMware vSphere 7.0 with ESXi and vCenter course. When performing your labs, you will have to consult your vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement Guide for these 5 additional lab tasks. Use the table below to work through lab tasks in the correct order:
| Lab Task Title | Where to Find This Task | |
|---|---|---|
| Connect to the ESXLab Remote Lab Environment | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Install and Configure ESXi 7.0 | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Virtual Switches and Virtual Networking | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Advanced Virtual Networking | vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement | |
| Network File System | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Windows Virtual Machines | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Install and Configure vCenter Server Appliance | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Templates and Clones | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Content Libraries | vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement | |
| Hot-plug Virtual Disks, vCPU, vRAM | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Working with vCenter Permissions | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Shared Storage | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Working with Raw Device Maps | vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement | |
| Working with VMFS Volumes | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| vCenter Alarms | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Resources and Resource Pools | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Virtual Machine Migration | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Distributed Resource Scheduling Clusters | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| VMware High Availability Clusters | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| VMware Fault Tolerance | vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement | |
| VMware Lifecycle Manager | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Performance | vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide | |
| Distributed Virtual Switches | vSphere 7.0 Boot Camp Supplement |
Please complete all labs in the order above. Please do not skip any labs as success in prior labs is often required for future labs to perform as documented.
If you have no interest or you are pressed for time, you may safely skip the following labs:
- Content Libraries
- Working with Raw Device Maps
- vCenter Alarms
- VMware Fault Tolerance
- Performance
- Distributed Virtual Switches
Questions and Support
If you have any questions or need support, please open a trouble ticket by visiting http://helpdesk.esxlab.com. You will need to create an account before you can create a trouble ticket. Trouble tickets are answered within one business day, but only between the hours of 9-5 Eastern time. If we take longer than 1 business day, we will extend your lab rental time to compensate you for the lost time.
- Our labs are not backed up. If you are doing anything you value, make notes, download your work or do whatever to save your work. If our labs fail in any way, our sole responsibility to you will be to provision you with new labs
Thank you for purchasing our vSphere 7.0 Lab Guide and renting time on our labs.
Need More Time? No Problem!
It typically takes 20+ hours to complete all of the tasks in our Lab Guide. If you find yourself short on time and want to continue using your labs, you can purchase extra time. To do that, please visit:
http://esxlab-com.3dcartstores.com/Extend-any-Current-Lab-Rental_p_43.html
Sincerely
All the friendly lab techs here at ESXLab.com