ROCK / MOCK Tutorial in ESXi7 for Beginners

Tinkering
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Having a nuc (10i7) I wanted to try to install ROCK in ESXi 7 (VM mode) but I found some difficulties, because the downloadable iso is not bootable by ESXi; after several readings I found the right way to do it and I would like to share with you the procedure also for those who like me are a newbie with ESXi.

I’ll leave you with lots of pictures because as they say: a picture is worth a thousand words.

First, after downloading the iso from the official Roonlabs website, we need to extract it and get the .img and convert it with a software StarWind V2V Converter.:

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5. StarWind565×511 16.4 KB
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6. StarWind565×511 5.79 KB
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7. StarWind565×511 6.47 KB

Now let’s prepare the virtual machine with VMware Workstation Pro 16

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remove the printer and DVD, which serves no purpose

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WARNING DO NOT REMOVE USB!

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Switch on the newly created virtual machine and check that everything is working fine

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Now that everything is working properly, we turn off the machine and create a disk where we can install ROCK

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It is now time to connect a second keyboard to our computer and make some changes to the VMW file to enable device passthrough.

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Now we can finally install ROCK!

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Now we turn off the machine and disconnect the “ROON installer” host disk and export the entire virtual machine in OVA format.

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Now simply import the new *.ova machine onto your ESXi 7 and you’re done.

I hope I have been clear and helpful for those of you who are new to ESXi.

10 Likes
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This is good stuff. I know the time you spent on capturing the images. Well done.

How’s it performing? In my VM I found it was a little happier with 8GB RAM. It will run ok at 4 but if you give it a little more it gets a bit more responsive.

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Excellent !!!
It is the most detail installation guidelines I have ever see. Just step by step even a newbie can clone the result.

1 Like
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Many thanks.

There are some differences when using the free workstation but I’ve managed to improvise based on this guide and successfully added ROCK to my ESXi.

1 Like
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@fatez Steve, I applaud the time and effort you put into your post. Hats off to you sir!

1 Like
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Thank you so much, it is a pleasure to share with the community.

1 Like
7

Thanks for this great post and the passthrough tip… I could get there on my own up to the point where I needed keyboard input during the setup and could not find any way to make it work :wink:

1 Like