For testing and educational purposes only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ESXi 6 evaluation license is valid for 60 days and a free one can be obtained from VMware at anytime. Resetting the evaluation license provides continual access to all the features available, and most importantly for me, full compatibility with the ESXi Embedded Host Client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note: Running these commands will cause ESXi to appear offline\/down. For example, my UPS virtual machine connected to my actual UPS began shutting down VMs because it believed ESXi ran into a problem. Shut down those VMs firstly before running this command then bring them back up later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Turn on SSH and log in to the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remove the current license<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rm -r \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nCopy over the new evaluation license, which is already on the host<\/p>\n\n\n\n
cp \/etc\/vmware\/.#license.cfg \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nRestart ESXi services<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\/etc\/init.d\/vpxa restart<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nConfirm the new license<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Automatic Script<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The commands above can be run automatic to keep your ESXi license reset on a set schedule using cron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have also created a script which powers off and on a VM of your choice (such as a UPS agent) in case it shuts down the host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First create the script (reset-eval.sh) somewhere accessible to ESXi. I chose to put in my ZFS0 datastore (\/vmfs\/volumes\/ZFS0\/reset.eval)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#!\/bin\/sh\r\n## remove license\r\necho 'Removing License'\r\nrm -r \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\r\n## get a new trial license\r\necho 'Copying new license'\r\ncp \/etc\/vmware\/.#license.cfg \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\r\n## restart services\r\necho 'Restarting VPXA'\r\n\/etc\/init.d\/vpxa restart<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThis alternative script shuts down any VM called ‘ups-agent’. You may edit that line to your VM’s name<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#!\/bin\/sh\r\n\r\n# This script shuts down the UPS-Agent and resets the license\r\necho 'Getting VMID of UPS-Agent'\r\nvmid=$(vim-cmd vmsvc\/getallvms | grep ups-agent | awk '{print $1}')\r\necho 'VMID is' $vmid\r\n\r\necho 'Getting UPS-Agent Power state'\r\nstate=$(vim-cmd vmsvc\/power.getstate $vmid | grep Powered)\r\necho 'VM is currently' $state\r\nx=1\r\n\r\nwhile [[ \"$state\" == \"Powered on\" && $x -lt 3 ]]\r\ndo\r\n echo 'Powering off...'\r\n vim-cmd vmsvc\/power.shutdown \"$vmid\"\r\n echo 'Waiting for VM to power off...'\r\n i=30;while [ $i -gt 0 ];do if [ $i -gt 9 ];then printf \"bb$i\";else printf \"bb $i\";fi;sleep 1;i=`expr $i - 1`;done\r\n state=$(vim-cmd vmsvc\/power.getstate $vmid | grep Powered)\r\n x=`expr $x + 1`\r\ndone\r\n\r\nif [ \"$state\" == \"Powered off\" ]\r\n then\r\n ## remove license\r\n echo 'Removing License'\r\n rm -r \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\r\n ## get a new trial license\r\n echo 'Copying new license'\r\n cp \/etc\/vmware\/.#license.cfg \/etc\/vmware\/license.cfg\r\n ## restart services\r\n echo 'Restarting VPXA'\r\n \/etc\/init.d\/vpxa restart\r\n #echo 'Restarting Services'\r\n #services.sh restart\r\n ## power on\r\n echo 'Powering on USP-Agent'\r\n vim-cmd vmsvc\/power.on \"$vmid\"\r\nelse\r\n echo 'Could not turn off UPS-Agent'\r\nfi\r\n\r\necho 'Finished'<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nTest the script and make sure it works (remember to chmod +x)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ chmod +x reset-eval.sh
.\/reset-eval.sh<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nAdd the script to the crontab to make it run on a set schedule (mine is set at 6:05am each day). For each 59 days do * * 59 * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\/bin\/echo \"5 6 * * * \/vmfs\/volumes\/ZFS0\/reset-eval.sh\" >> \/var\/spool\/cron\/crontabs\/root
kill $(cat \/var\/run\/crond.pid)
crond<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nFinally add the following to the end of ‘\/etc\/rc.local.d\/local.sh’ to regenerate the job as ESXi clears the crontab on reboot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\/bin\/kill $(cat \/var\/run\/crond.pid)
\/bin\/echo \"5 6 * * * \/vmfs\/volumes\/ZFS0\/reset-eval.sh\" >> \/var\/spool\/cron\/crontabs\/root
crond<\/code><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For testing and educational purposes only. The ESXi 6 evaluation license is valid for 60 days and a free one can be obtained from VMware at anytime. Resetting the evaluation license provides continual access to all the features available, and most importantly for me, full compatibility with the ESXi Embedded Host Client. Commands Note: Running […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-with-sidebar","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6,7,8,9,10,11],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visualization","tag-cron","tag-esxi","tag-evaluation","tag-license","tag-reset","tag-script"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/23"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nguyenhieu.name.vn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}