I made a couple machines like this last year. Why on earth did I add "os-variant=fedora10"? Can't remember. 

I had issues mixing libvirt and VMware. I ran into some odd SSL errors, and the machines couldn't see each other. I didn't get to the bottom of those problems. 

HOST=esxi7-1
OS_DISK=/var/lib/libvirt/images/$HOST.qcow2
DATASTORE_DISK=/var/lib/libvirt/images/$HOST-datastore.qcow2
INSTALL_ISO=/var/lib/libvirt/images/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U2-17630552.x86_64.iso
IF1_MAC=52:54:00:00:00:10
IF2_MAC=52:54:00:00:00:11

HOST=esxi7-2
OS_DISK=/var/lib/libvirt/images/$HOST.qcow2
DATASTORE_DISK=/var/lib/libvirt/images/$HOST-datastore.qcow2
INSTALL_ISO=/var/lib/libvirt/images/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U2-17630552.x86_64.iso
IF1_MAC=52:54:00:00:00:12
IF2_MAC=52:54:00:00:00:13

virt-install \
  --name="$HOST" \
  --vcpus=8 \
  --ram=20480 \
  --cpu host-passthrough  \
  --disk path=$OS_DISK,size=20,bus=sata \
  --disk path=$DATASTORE_DISK,size=200,bus=sata \
  --os-type linux \
  --os-variant=fedora10 \
  --network network=pubbr0,mac=$IF1_MAC,model=e1000e   \
  --network network=privbr0,mac=$IF2_MAC,model=e1000e   \
  --boot uefi,menu=on,cdrom,hd \
  --graphics vnc \
  --video qxl \
  --cdrom $INSTALL_ISO \
  --noautoconsole \
  --features kvm_hidden=on \
  --machine q35


On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 9:58 AM Martin Kletzander <mkletzan@redhat.com> wrote:
On Tue, Aug 10, 2021 at 09:45:37PM +0200, Gunnar wrote:
>I am trying to install esxi7 inside a KVM machine
>
>    virt-install --name=esxi7 \
>    --vcpus=2 \
>    --memory=4096 \
>    --cdrom=/home/username/isos/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U2a-17867351.x86_64.iso
>    \
>    --disk size=33 \
>    --os-variant=unknown
>
>the installation process starts but does not get fails with a "No
>network adapters" error. This does not happen with other VM's.
>What do I have to add to above command in order to attach the default
>network adapter to the machine?
>

First look if the machine has any network interface.  If it does, the
guest OS probably does not support the model, so you can change that.
If it does not have one, then you probably want to use '--network
network=default' in your virt-install command and you can always look
that up in the man page as well (e.g. man virt-install).

>or is there any other trick I have to be aware of when it comes to
>installing ESXi
>

No idea as I have never installed anything like that.

>thx ... Gunnar

Hope that helped,
Martin