vmware-usb-osx

This project includes a simple makefile that helps you create a bootable USB installer for VMware ESXi on OSX. This is based on a similar script I made for ubuntu.

Background on VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi is a lightweight operating system designed to run virtual machines. Whenever you hear about someone running virtual machines or cloud servers they're using ESXi, Xen, QEMU/KVM, or a similar technology under the hood.

ESXi is proprietary software, but you can download it and use it for free. You will need to register for a VMware account and download ESXi (also called "vSphere Hypervisor") before you use this script.

Instructions

1. Download the ESXi ISO and copy it into the same folder as this script. It will have a long name with a version number like VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.0.0-2494585.x86_64.iso. Rename it to esxi.iso so the script can find it.

2. Run make devices

3. Insert your USB stick. You'll see a new device appear in step 4.

4. Run make devices

5. Note the disk number for your USB stick. It will be something like /dev/disk2. The only part you care about is 2 (or 3, or 4, or whatever) for step 6.

6. make vmware DISK=2 Note: This step will ask for your password for sudo.

7. Pop the USB stick into the computer you want to vmware-ify and restart it.

Depending on how fast your USB stick is, step 6 make take awhile. On my computer it took around a minute and a half.