Install gnome on Vmware ESX 3.5

The problem is, that we want a simple way of solving future problems on the server and the biggest reason for installing a GUI is the handy explorer included.

(Isn't it possible to only start gnome when needed)

I agree with bleeuwen.  Do not install Gnome on your ESX box, use VI client.  It will take up resources on your host and increase the complexity of troubleshooting problems (as you are introducing non-ESX software).  VMware support engineers may give you less support because of instaling Gnome.  VI client provides a remote GUI tool to manage all aspects of your ESX host(s).  Rarely is anything else needed or recommended to troubleshoot.  ESX is very stable and tinkering around with the filesystem is not recommended or supported.  As Bleeuwen mentioned, you can use WinSCP to remotely browse the filesystem (we use Putty).  

@rindi:
ok I'll look for that and hope a installer can be downloaded instead of using the yum install lists, that are empty in ESX. (because samba wasn't in that either)

@bleeuwen:
I know that esx hosts can be managed that way,
Is the SCPserver as default activated on a linux or ESX server?


can someone tell me how to download gnome using wget and install it?

It wouldn't only be gnome that you need, but also X etc. It is a big tool and as mentioned earlier, not needed on ESX, it also adds security weaknesses etc, and if you need to troubleshoot things the issues you'd have would mainyl be about X and gnome, but not ESX.

Ok, you have convinced me not installing gnome,
I like putty too, but i'm not finding it easy to copy a file from and to the server, now I'm using apt-get for this, not really handy...

maybe a samba share is an option, is it a good choice installing webmin (for managing samba and shorewall or iptables) and a shorewall firewall?

(when I'm back at work, I'll try WinSCP, it's using SSH I suppose?)

SCP does indeed use SSH.  It is secure copy protocol.  It isn't really for issuing commands to the remote OS.  You would use SSH (Putty) for that.  Webmin is not a good choice for all of the reasons we mentioned above.  

For copying files use WinSCP.  It is a GUI product that will let you copy files back and forth from your ESX server to your Windows management machine.  http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

Here is the simplest way to easily copy files between ESX servers and also WIN<->ESX: http://veeam.com/vmware-esx-fastscp.html
But why not use following built-in functionality: "scp filename user@another.esx.server:/directory/to/store/file" ?

Actually, in 3.5 you can use the viclient to upload files to the server too.

From the Summary page of an ESX server, right click a datastore and choose Browse Datastore. From that window you can choose Upload File or Upload Folder.

As mentioned before I think we all agree now that Gnome is a bad idea on the Service Console. :)

Lars

@jfields71: winscp is very nice thanks for that, also the built-in firewall is just what I needed.

@rindi: midnight commander would be nice but when I try to install mc on esx i get the following errors:

error: Failed dependencies:
        libICE.so.6 is needed by mc-4.6.0-2
        libSM.so.6 is needed by mc-4.6.0-2
        libX11.so.6 is needed by mc-4.6.0-2

(I tried installing mc-4.6.1a-10.i386.rpm form a third party website, that worked but instead of displaying lines (like -----) it displays ààààà what makes it really messy, so that is why i tried an original version that displays the above errors)

You'd have to install those dependencies too.

How do I do that?
(ESX hasn't all supported files to resolve dependencies)

Youo'd have to find them on the inet and then install each of them separately, but they might themselves require other dependencies resolved too.

Be also aware that if you install such tools they will not be able to see your files in the /vmfs hierarchy.

The tools included in ESX have already been modified to be able to do that.

Lars