Home Assistant on ESXi

Home Assistant is some powerful automation software that integrates with a lot of IoT devices.

The .vmdk that is made available on their website is created using VmWare Workstation, which uses the older format of .vmdk so it needs to be converted before you can run it on ESXi.

Turn on SSH:

Host, Manage, Services Tab, right click TSM-SSH and choose start. Optionally you can set the policy to start with the server. Make sure you have a long, complex password before changing the policy.

Now we can use SSH / Putty to get a command prompt on the ESXi Host

cd /vmfs/volumes
ls

if you are using putty you will see some shortcuts/hardlinks in light blue. my Virtual disks are stored on LocalSata1

cd LocalSata1
ls

cd into the name of your VM, mine is named HomeAssistant
i made sure that my VM is off and the .vmdk is not connected to a VM. may still work if connected.
to convert the .vmdk to the new disk format use the following command

vmkfstools -i ./haos_ova-7.4.vmdk ./haos_esx-7.4.vmdk

attach the new .vmdk to your VM and power it up to confirm it is working.
It shows on the startup screen what IP address and TCP port to enter in your browser.
you can now delete the old format .vmdk with the command

rm ./haos_ova-7.4.vmdk

How-To is here https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/linux