Installation

Perhaps someone can point me toward a VMWare ESXi + m0n0wall guide? I have limited (read: desktop) visualization experience. My first exposure with m0n0wall was accompanied by a great guide that explained hardware types, recommended hw tweaks, hw tests,  and m0n0wall install. Has anyone put something like this together for ESXi?

Its not really hard.
1) Download the generic-pc iso (not serial, no use for it) of monowall.

2) Upload the iso to a datastore, unless you want to use Client Device feature of vsphere client.

3) create a new VM. Select 32bit Freebsd for the OS. remove unesscary hardware like the floppy and add as many NICs as you need (atleast 2, 1 for WAN, 1 for LAN, add extra NICS if you need separate LANs). I suggest 256MB for ram, don't think you should use less than 128MB ...50-100MB harddrive but you can make it 1 gig if you have the room to spare (Mine is set to 128MB for harddrive in my lab)

4) Hope you have a managed switch or multiple NICs in your ESXi. Don't use the vlan settings inside m0n0wall.

I've installed m0n0wall on ESXi but I cannot get the network working.

It lists the two E1000 network adapters als valid network connections and shows '(up)' but when I use autodetect to select a network connection it does not detect them.
If I select them manually the network doesn't seem to come up. The image can't be pinged and can't ping something else on the network either.

Any ideas?

Autodetect can never work since you can not set link state. (Plug and unplug cables)  You will have to set it manually.

You can 'plug and unplug' cables using VMware simple by checking the 'Connected' box of the NIC.

However I did set it manually but it still didn't work.