Top VMware Websites & Resources – Official Docs, Downloads, Communities & Tools

This blog provides some commonly used official VMware by Broadcom websites. Since VMware was acquired by Broadcom, some original VMware websites have undergone changes. This article provides the latest URLs. 

Why VMware Websites Matter for IT Admins

VMware administrators often rely on official VMware resources, communities, and online tools for troubleshooting, updates, and learning. Knowing the right websites helps save time and ensures access to accurate technical information.

Commonly Used Official VMware Websites

1. VMware Product Compatibility Guide

https://compatibilityguide.broadcom.com/

This website can be used to query the compatibility of VMware products (e.g., vSphere ESXi) with server hardware, I/O cards, storage arrays, and other devices. It is important information that must be referenced before deploying a new environment or upgrading.

2. VMware Product Upgrade Path

https://interopmatrix.broadcom.com/Upgrade

Before upgrading VMware products, users need to check the upgrade path to see if they can directly upgrade in one go or if they need to upgrade in stages. The figure shows how to query the upgrade path for ESXi. Other VMware products can be switched on the left.

3. VMware Product Interoperability Query

https://interopmatrix.broadcom.com/Interoperability

Before installing some VMware products, you need to check whether the version of the product is compatible with the version of the product to be linked or integrated, such as the compatibility between ESXi and vCenter

4. VMware Product Lifecycle

https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productlifecycle

Used to query the support cycle of VMware products (GA date, General Support expiration date, Technical Guidance expiration date), facilitating enterprises to plan system upgrades and maintenance.

5. VMware Ports and Protocols

https://ports.broadcom.com/home/vSphere

This website is used to query the ports and protocols that need to be opened for VMware solutions, making it convenient for users to configure firewall policies or other network policies.

6. VMware Hands-On LABs

https://labs.hol.vmware.com/hol/catalog

Many VMware beginners, or newcomers to a certain product, want to understand the page layout and operation process of a certain product, but cannot find hardware resources, or have no test authorization, and cannot experience it. At this time, they can go to the Hands-on Lab. Without installing any software, they can experience the practical scenarios of various VMware products online through a browser, which is suitable for learning solutions such as NSX, vSAN, Aria, and Workspace ONE. It is more demanding on network conditions, and using magic can significantly improve fluency.

7. VMware Security Blog

https://blogs.vmware.com/security/

VMware will push some vulnerabilities or security-related announcements. Users need to check the security articles to see if they affect the products they use and determine whether an upgrade is needed.

8. VMware Product Documentation

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/

VMware's official product documentation site. Supports search, version selection, and PDF download, and the content is authoritative and detailed.

9. Omnissa Product Documentation

https://docs.omnissa.com

VMware's original UEM product line (including Horizon, Workspace ONE UEM, etc.) was acquired by Omnissa, and the official website also migrated from VMware to Omnissa.

10. Omnissa Product Download

https://customerconnect.omnissa.com/downloads/#all_products

Omnissa's full product line download website, where you can download solutions, including but not limited to Horizon, WSO UEM, etc.

Some websites for free access to VMware-related resources

1. https://vmpatch.com/

2. http://37.46.117.90:22376/data/ISOs/VMware/

Login with account password required:

 
username：not-he-knows 
password：he-knows-not

Other sites: [BG] 37.46.117.90 

[ES] 194.99.104.35

[NL] 213.152.162.84

[SG] 185.200.116.211

[UA] 62.182.80.97

3. https://nas.hzvcloud.com:5001/sharing/DEdHclZgr

Best Practices for VMware Admins

• Bookmark these official resources for quick reference.

• Use VMware KB before troubleshooting issues.

• Join VMware Communities to stay updated on real-world fixes.

• Regularly check patches & updates via Customer Connect.

The resource websites provided in this article are publicly available resources. If there is any infringement, please contact us to delete them.

If you have any other resource acquisition websites or useful VMware-related websites, you can share them in the comment section for everyone to learn together.

 Use PowerCLI with ESXi-Customizer-PS – Build Custom VMware ESXi ISO Step-by-Step

Why Use ESXi-Customizer-PS with PowerCLI?

VMware ESXi doesn’t always include drivers for new hardware (network cards, storage adapters, etc.). With ESXi-Customizer-PS, you can easily inject drivers, VIBs, or offline bundles into a standard ESXi ISO, creating a custom installer that works on unsupported hardware.

Pairing it with PowerCLI allows administrators to script and automate ISO creation, saving time and ensuring consistency across deployments.

Many users do not check the compatibility of server network cards before purchasing hardware, or encounter errors when installing ESXi on old servers, with No Network Adapters, preventing ESXi from being installed normally

Some users also find that the RAID card is not recognized during installation, which makes it unable to select storage for the ESXi installation.

At this point, you need to manually try the network card, RAID card driver, or the driver offline package or VIB file that needs to be packaged, and use PowerCLI with the ESXi-Customizer-PS script to package the driver into the ESXi offline installation package. The following describes how to use PowerCLI with ESXi-Customizer-PS to inject VIB packages into ESXi offline bundles.

A: Install PowerCLI

For detailed installation methods of VMware PowerCLI, please refer to my previous article:

VMware PowerCLI Super Detailed Tutorial

B: Package the driver into the ESXi installation package

After installing PowerCLI, an error occurred when trying to package the device driver VIB into the ESXi file. The log shows that the VMware.ImageBuilder module in PowerCLI 13 depends on Python versions 3.7.1-3.12, so the Python environment needs to be installed first.

First: Install Python environment

1. Visit the Python official website to download the Python installation package (versions 3.7.1-3.12). Here, Python 3.9 is taken as an example. Click Install Now, then remember the installation path and check the bottom option "Add Python 3.7 to PATH", automatically configure the environment variables, no manual configuration required

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-379/

2. Wait for the installation to complete, and click Close to finish

3. Switch to the Python installation path (replace [python3.7-directory] with the Python installation path), use the following command to upgrade pip online, or download pip offline for installation, which is not demonstrated here

 
[python3.7-directory]\python.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip

4. Install necessary components using the command pip install six psutil lxml pyopenssl

 
[python3.7-directory]\Scripts\pip3.7.exe install six psutil lxml pyopenssl

Wait for the installation to complete

5. Configure the Python 3.7 path in PowerShell using the command Set-PowerCLIConfiguration -PythonPath C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\python.exe -Scope User (where C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\ is replaced with your actual Python installation path)

Second, start encapsulating ESXi

1. Get the latest version of ESXi-Customizer-PS

https://github.com/VFrontDe-Org/ESXi-Customizer-PS

2. Transfer ESXi-Customizer-PSscripts, device drivers, VIB or ZIP files, and ESXi ZIP packages into the same folder (VIB files can be placed in a separate subfolder)

3. Open PowerShell, switch to the folder where the script and driver are placed

4. Run the following command to package the vib file into the ESXi offline package

 
.\ESXi-Customizer-PS-2.9.ps1 -izip .\VMware-ESXi-7.0U3w-24784741-depot.zip -pkgDir .\vib -nsc

Because the vib file of a driver is randomly selected in this experimental environment, there may be some warnings along the way. This article aims to introduce the operating steps. Please download the driver file according to the actual situation.

(If the requirements are different, you can refer to this website https://www.v-front.de/p/esxi-customizer-ps.html#download, query other different usages of ESXi-Customizer-PS)

5. After the program finishes running, a packaged ISO file is generated in the same directory.

6. Validate the Custom ISO

Test deployment in a VMware Workstation VM or lab server before production use.

Best Practices

• Always use official VMware VIBs and drivers to avoid compatibility issues.

• Keep a copy of the original ISO for fallback.

• Document your customization steps for future builds.

• Regularly update ESXi-Customizer-PS and PowerCLI for compatibility.

Before purchasing or upgrading a server, highly recommended to visit the official VMware by Broadcom website (https://compatibilityguide.broadcom.com/) to check hardware compatibility before proceeding, to avoid creating problems for the future production environment.

 VMware PowerCLI Super Detailed Tutorial – Complete Guide with Commands & Examples

What is VMware PowerCLI?

VMware PowerCLI is a command-line and scripting toolset provided by VMware, based on Windows PowerShell, specifically designed for managing and automating VMware virtualization environments (such as vSphere, vCloud, vSAN, etc.). It achieves comprehensive control over ESXi hosts and vCenter Server by calling the vSphere Web Services API, making it a core tool for IT administrators to improve operational efficiency.

VMware PowerCLI is a powerful command-line tool built on Microsoft PowerShell that allows administrators to automate VMware vSphere environments. With PowerCLI, you can manage ESXi hosts, vCenter, virtual machines, storage, and networking through scripts instead of manual tasks.

Core Functions and Application Scenarios of VMware PowerCLI:

1. Infrastructure Automated Deployment

• Batch creation of data centers, clusters, and resource pools:

  
New-Datacenter -Name "NYC_DataCenter" #Create data center
New-Cluster -Name "Cluster" -HAEnabled -DRSEnabled #Cluster with HA and DRS enabled

• Automatically add ESXi hosts to clusters, supporting rapid SSL certificate integration (**Force** parameter)

2. Virtual Machine Full Lifecycle Management

• Virtual machine creation/cloning/deletion, hardware configuration (CPU/memory/disk expansion)

• Snapshot management (creation, restoration, deletion) and VMware Tools updates

3. Resource Optimization and Monitoring

• Fine-grained allocation of CPU, memory resource pools (e.g., **New-ResourcePool**)

• Collect performance data and generate HTML reports to achieve capacity planning and fault early warning

4. High Availability and Disaster Recovery

• Configure cluster high availability (HA) policies (e.g., fault tolerance level **HAFailoverLevel 2**)

• Integration with Site Recovery Manager (SRM), scripted custom disaster recovery plans

5. Network and Storage Management

• Distributed Switch (vDS) configuration, port group policy management (**VMware.VimAutomation.Vds** module)

• Storage policy automation, datastore monitoring (**VMware.VimAutomation.Storage** module)

 Offline Installation of PowerCLI

Offline installation of PowerCLI requires administrators to manually download the installation package and install it using the provided commands. This is suitable for environments without network access or with poor network conditions.

1. Before installing PowerCLI, check the Broadcom product interoperability matrix to see which version of PowerCLI is compatible with your actual VMware products.

https://interopmatrix.broadcom.com/Interoperability

2. After determining the PowerCLI version to install, go to the Broadcom official website to download PowerCLI (requires logging in with a Broadcom account to download). For this experimental environment, the latest version PowerCLI 13.3  is selected.

https://developer.broadcom.com/tools/vmware-powercli/latest

If you want to download other versions, you can select them as needed in the upper-right corner of the page.

3. After the download is complete, unzip the ZIP package.

4. Open PowerShell as an administrator and use the following command to check the PowerShell module path:$env: PSModulePath

 
$env: PSModulePath

5. This command will output all PowerShell module paths (each path separated by a;sign). Select one of them and open the path in File Explorer.

6. Copy and paste all files unzipped from the ZIP file into one of PowerShell's module paths.

7. First, use the cd command to switch to the path where the PowerCLI module is located, i.e., where the unzipped files were pasted, such as C:\Program\WindowsPowerShell\Modules. Then use Get-ChildItem * -Recurse | Unblock-File to unblock these files to prevent PowerShell from distrusting these PowerCLI modules.

 
cd C:\Program\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
Get-ChildItem * -Recurse | Unblock-File

8. You can use the Get-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI* -ListAvailable command to verify if the PowerCLI module is available.

 
Get-Module -Name VMware.PowerCLI* -ListAvailable

Online installation of PowerCLI

To install VMware PowerCLI online, only one command is needed, but it heavily relies on the network environment.

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator, then run the PowerCLI online installation command.

 
Install-Module VMware.PowerCLI

2. During the installation, some authorization operations will be prompted. Allow all of them and wait for the installation to complete.

At this point, VMware PowerCLI is installed! If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments below.

Advanced PowerCLI Use Cases

• Automating VM provisioning

• Generating inventory reports (CPU, memory, storage usage)

• Managing datastores and snapshots

• Performing bulk configuration changes

• Automating disaster recovery tasks

Best Practices for PowerCLI

• Use descriptive script names for easy maintenance.

• Run scripts in a test environment before production.

• Store credentials securely instead of plain text.

• Keep PowerCLI updated to match vSphere versions.

Using VMware Snapshots as Backups – Risks, Best Practices & Alternatives

A bloody lesson! Using VMware snapshots as backup, the business collapsed for 12 hours...

At 3 AM, a piercing alarm suddenly blared in the server room. Operations engineer Xiao Chen sprang up from in front of the monitor screen — the database server of the core business system was completely offline, and the cashier systems of hundreds of stores instantly crashed. No one expected that the source of this 12-hour business disaster was a VMware snapshot, which was treated as an "all-purpose backup."

The story goes back a week. To test new features, the technical team created 3 snapshots on the database server, intending to delete them immediately after testing. But in the rush to meet project deadlines, everyone completely forgot about it. As the snapshot chain grew longer and longer, the performance of the virtual disk quietly began to decline, until one morning, the disk space was completely occupied by snapshot files, and the system directly crashed with a blue screen.

What's worse, the team had always treated snapshots as formal backups. When they found the main system down, they were dumbfounded when they tried to restore the snapshot. The longest snapshot had existed for 7 days, and the accumulated business data from that period had not been synchronized at all. Restoring it meant losing 30% of the transaction records. Even more frustrating, during the snapshot restoration process, file fragmentation errors occurred on the virtual disk, and it took 5 hours just to fix them.

Are VMware Snapshots Backups?

A VMware snapshot captures the state of a virtual machine at a given point in time. While snapshots are useful for testing, patching, and short-term recovery, they are not designed as a long-term backup solution.

Many admins mistakenly rely on snapshots as backups, which can lead to storage issues, data corruption, and performance degradation.

In fact, this is not an isolated case. VMware snapshots are essentially "state freezing tools. "They are like taking an instant photo of a virtual machine, but they cannot replace professional backup:

• Performance Killer

More than 2 snapshot chains can cause IO performance to plummet by 50%. If they exist for more than 3 days, they may trigger a disk fragmentation storm. Even deleting snapshots may lead to the risk of virtual machine consolidation snapshots becoming unusable.

• Data Trap

Snapshot files are tightly bound to the source disk. Once the source disk is damaged, the snapshot will also be rendered useless.

• Capacity Bomb

Dynamically growing snapshot files can consume an entire storage pool within hours, especially in high-frequency read/write scenarios like databases.

The correct approach should be: Snapshots are only for short-term testing (recommended not to exceed 24 hours), combined with scheduled backup tools for complete data protection. After each snapshot creation, set up automatic deletion reminders and check snapshot cleanup weekly.

The direct loss caused by that downtime ultimately exceeded one million, and the team immediately formulated a "Snapshot Lifecycle Management Specification."

Remember: Snapshots are emergency bandages, not long-term safes. Relying on snapshots for backup will sooner or later cost you for that.

Risks of Using VMware Snapshots as Backups

• Storage Bloat: Snapshots grow over time and consume large amounts of disk space.

• Performance Issues: Multiple snapshots can slow down VM performance.

• Data Loss Risk: If the base disk becomes corrupted, restoring from snapshots may fail.

• Unsupported for Long-Term Retention: VMware explicitly advises against using snapshots as backups.

Best Practices for Using VMware Snapshots

• Use snapshots only for short-term testing and before risky changes.

• Delete snapshots after verification to avoid storage problems.

• Limit to 1–2 snapshots per VM whenever possible.

• Monitor datastore usage to avoid unexpected out-of-space errors.

Interactive at the end of the blog: What virtualization backup pitfalls have you encountered? Share your solutions in the comments below. 

 Fix VMware vCenter 503 Service Unavailable Error – Step-by-Step Troubleshooting Guide

Whether in a production or test environment, everyone often overlooks the vCenter certificate expiration date, leading to situations where vCenter suddenly reports an error when managing hosts or VMs, preventing normal access to the vCenter web console.503 error, unable to enter the vCenter web console normally

When accessing vCenter via a web browser, an error is reported: 503 Service Unavailable (Failed to connect to endpoint: [N7Vmacore4Http20NamedPipeServiceSpecE:0x0000563fa6eb6ac0] _serverNamespace = / action = Allow _pipeName =/var/run/vmware/vpxd-webserver-pipe), no matter how many times vCenter is restarted, it doesn't help. Restarting all vCenter services also doesn't bring them up.

Problem Analysis:

A vCenter 503 error typically indicates that critical vCenter Server services, such as vpxd, have not been started. At this point, you can prioritize checking if the vCenter certificate has expired. Since the vCenter web console is inaccessible, you can only check and fix it via the shell.

What Causes the vCenter 503 Service Unavailable Error?

The 503 Service Unavailable error in VMware vCenter typically occurs when the vSphere Web Client cannot connect to backend services. Common causes include:

• vCenter Server services stopped or failed to start.

• Database connectivity issues.

• Resource exhaustion (CPU, RAM, or disk).

• SSL/TLS certificate misconfigurations.

• Damaged or outdated vCenter installation.

Solution:

Before you start: It is recommended to take a snapshot of the virtual machine before making any changes to it!

1. Access vCenter's FQDN or IP address plus port 5480 in your browser (e.g., https://vc.lab.local:5480 or https://192.168.1.1:5480). In the left navigation bar, click "Access", and enable the "SSH Login" function in the "Edit" section on the right.

2. Use WinSCP or other SCP tools to upload the checksts.py certificate detection tool (available at the end of this article) to the /tmp directory of vCenter. If WinSCP reports an error during upload, such as "Received too large (1433299822 B) SFTP packet. Max supported packet size is 1024000 B", first SSH into vCenter and run the following command, then try uploading again:

  
chsh -s /bin/bash root

3. Run the script to check the certificate status

  
cd /tmp
python checksts.py

As shown in the figure above, there are two expired certificates in "EXPIRED CERTS", which prevent vCenter from starting normally.

4. If expired certificates are found, you need to upload the fixsts.sh certificate repair tool (this tool can be obtained at the end of the article) to the /tmp directory via WinSCP to repair the certificates.

  
cd /tmp
chmod 777 fixsts.sh
./fixsts.sh
service-control --stop --all && service-control --start --all

5. After waiting for some time, re-access the vCenter URL in the browser, and you can log in normally.

6. If vCenter has not recovered after the above operations, you can try to use the VMCA tool to update all certificates. First, log in to the vCenter shell and run the following command:

  
/usr/lib/vmware-vmca/bin/certificate-manager

Type the number 8, press Enter, and enter the following information as appropriate to update all certificates:

  
Please configure certool.cfg file with proper values before proceeding to next step.
Press Enter key to skip optional parameters or use Default value.
Enter proper value for 'Country' [Default value : US] : Press Enter for default
Enter proper value for 'Name' [Default value : CA] : Press Enter for default
Enter proper value for 'Organization' [Default value : VMware] : Default enter to confirm
Enter proper value for 'OrgUnit' [Default value : VMware Engineering] : Default enter to confirm
Enter proper value for 'State' [Default value : California] : Default enter to confirm
Enter proper value for 'Locality' [Default value : Palo Alto] : Press Enter for default
Enter proper value for 'IPAddress' [optional] : Enter vCenter IP address
Enter proper value for 'Email' [Default value : email@acme.com] : Press Enter for default
Enter proper value for 'Hostname' [Enter valid Fully Qualified Domain Name(FQDN), For Example : example.example.com] : If vCenter has an FQDN, enter the FQDN; if it's an IP installation, enter the IP
Enter proper value for VMCA 'Name': (Note: This information will be requested from vCenter Server 6.0 U3, 6.5 and later builds, you may use the FQDN/PNID of vCenter Server for this field. It will be used as a Common Name for the VMCA Root Certificate) input vCenter IP

Best Practices to Avoid Future 503 Errors

• Regularly update vCenter Server to the latest stable build.

• Monitor resource usage with vSphere monitoring tools.

• Schedule service restarts during maintenance windows.

• Back up the vCenter database and configuration before upgrades.

Official reference links:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=337535

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/318968

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleId=318767

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?legacyId=76719

The mentioned checksts.py and fixsts.sh tools. Follow the official account and reply with [503] to get them.