Determining the ESXi installation type

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to identify the ESXi type installed on a host. You may want to determine the installed ESXi type if a patch or command fails to run on the host.
 

Environment

• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1
• VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
• VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7
• VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0
• VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0

Resolution

For ESXi 7.0 and later:

On ESXi 7.0 and later, we no longer distinguish between "embedded" and "installable" installation. A host is either disk installed (stateful) or PXE deployed (statelss).

To determine the type of ESXi installation, run the below command in an SSH session (or via PowerCLI):
esxcli system boot device get
 
If the command returns non-empty "Boot Filesystem UUID", this system is disk installed. Otherwise, the system is PXE deployed.

For ESXi 6.7 and earlier:

ESXi installed on a host can be one of these types:

• Embedded
• Installable
• PXE

To determine the type of ESXi installation:

1. Connect to the host via SSH.
2. Run this command:
   
   # esxcfg-info -e
   
   You see an output similar to:
   
   boot type: visor-thin
   
   You can determine the ESXi type based on the output of this command.
   
   For example:
   • visor-thin indicates an installable deployment
   • visor-usb indicates an embedded deployment
   • visor-pxe indicates a PXE deployment

Alternatively, you can use the information from the bootbank UUID to determine the ESXi installation type.

 

To determine the ESXi installation type from the bootbank UUID information:

1. Connect to the host via SSH.
2. Run one of these commands to get the UUID of the current bootbank:
    
   • # esxcfg-info -b
     
     You see an output similar to:
     
     281aa0 78-########-####-##########c7
      
   • # esxcfg-info | grep "Boot Filesystem UUID"
     
     You see an output similar to:
     
     |----World Command Line.................................grep Boot Filesystem UUID
     |----Boot Filesystem UUID.....................................281aa0 78-########-####-##########c7
      
3. Examine the 7th character in the UUID returned by these commands (highlighted in red).
4. • If the character is e, it is an Embedded deployment.
   • If the character is anything but e, it is an Installable deployment.
   • If there is no UUID and the character is empty, it is a PXE deployment.

In this example, it is an Installable deployment.