NAEPS (Not Another ESX Provisioning Script)

NAEPS (Not Another ESX Provisioning Script)

This script builds on the excellent work done by lberc and others in the forums and at VMware

We are deploying VC+ESX to a somewhat interesting environment:

  • engineering is not directly involved in provisioning so it needs to be as automated as possible within a cost-effective constraint

  • security is important

  • We're using ESX not ESXi

The scripts I found stopped too soon for my O-C taste, so this one goes a bit further than others I found including:

  • Configure the license server

  • Upload signed SSL key and certificate files to the ESX server

  • Rename all local datastores to try to reduce the accidental deployment to local stores

  • Configure the firewall for NTP and updateManager

  • Targeted for ESX although there is also a nod to ESXi provisioning

  • Configure the environment for our special case where the VCS-ESX communications are on an isolated network

and a separate isolated VMotion network

  • Rescan the HBAs

It does the "usual" stuff borrowed from lberc and others:

  • reset the root password

  • configure networks

  • joining to VCS servers

  • configuring NTP, DNS, domain, name, IP's etc.

Some interesting concepts explored here, although hints of topics on these throughout the forums

  • Upload files to an https server with a self-signed SSL certificate

  • Finding the local datastores on an ESX server

  • Accessing and modifying the firewall configuration

  • Dealing with Passwords entered with the Read-Host -asSecureString

Some caveats

  • This is my first significant Powershell, .Net and VI project. I am sure many of you will cringe when you look at the arcane methods I found.

  • We do a manual install of ESX rather than using kickstart. I expect we'll head towards ESXi and this work wouldn't have paid back. This script is run immediately after the reboot following the installation.

  • It works pretty well in our target environment, but there is no guarantee or warranty it will work in yours.

  • The upload stuff works here works for fairly small files. (file size=memory consumed) Carter Shanklin and I are

working to improve the upload process. Watch Carter's (c_shanklin) blog and his VI Toolkit Extensions at

A few features for the next version of this script - perhaps in another life:

  • It should really attach the server to an Update Manager baseline and remediate.

  • Replace all the anachronisms with the best-practice methods

  • Configure a VMKernel network and gateway on the Management VLAN

  • A way cool Windows.Forms with drop-down lists to capture the information

  • Automatically download backup ESXi configuration file to the local disk

Oct 16 2008

I meant to mention how to generate a log file but forgot.

As you may have noticed all the messages in this script are simply dumped to the console, rather than explicitly output with Write-Host. You can redirect this to a log file and still see the console messages by invoking the script as follows:

.\configureESX.ps1 | Tee-Object .\configureESX-server.log

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‎10-10-2008 07:48 PM
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