VMware Cloud Community
ekissinger
Contributor
Contributor

ESXi 4.1 Kickstart Post Install Script

I seem to be having a problem running a post install script during my kickstart installation of ESXi 4.1. Everything completes without error but upon reboot, none of my changes are there. Here is my configuration file:

accepteula

vmserialnum --esx=XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

rootpw secretpw

autopart --firstdisk --overwritevmfs

install url nfs://IP/path_to_esx

network --bootproto=static --ip=xxx.x.xx.xxx --gateway=xxx.x.xx.xxx --netmask=255.255.255.0 --nameserver=xxx.x.xx.xxx --hostname=hostname.domain.com --addvmportgroup=0

%post --unsupported --interpreter=busybox

sleep 10

  1. Enable Management

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 TSM on

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 TSM-SSH on

  1. Modify /etc/resolv.conf

/bin/cat > /etc/resolv.conf << EOF

search domain.com

nameserver dns_server_ip1

nameserver dns_server_ip2

EOF

  1. NTP configuration

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 ntpd on

/bin/cat >> /etc/ntp.conf << EOF

server ntp_serverip1

server ntp_serverip2

server ntp_serverip3

EOF

I don't see any errors in the install log. Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
4 Replies
ekissinger
Contributor
Contributor

My #'s were replaced by 1. above. They are actually comment lines in the script.

Reply
0 Kudos
ekissinger
Contributor
Contributor

As a workaround, I changed the script from running post install to first boot and added a reboot at the end. I probably don't need the reboot but threw it in there for good measure.

Any clue on why post install didn't work?

-


%firstboot --unsupported --interpreter=busybox

sleep 10

  1. Enable Management

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 TSM on

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 TSM-SSH on

  1. Modify /etc/resolv.conf

/bin/cat > /etc/resolv.conf << EOF

search domain.com

nameserver dns_server_ip1

nameserver dns_server_ip2

EOF

#NTP configuration

/sbin/chkconfig --level 345 ntpd on

/bin/cat >> /etc/ntp.conf << EOF

server ntp_serverip1

server ntp_serverip2

server ntp_serverip3

EOF

/sbin/reboot

Reply
0 Kudos
anthonyu
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

how did you write the post script? if you wrote it in notepad/wordpad that changes the type to DOS and the system has trouble reading it. if you have a base one I recomend putting it on a linux system and use winscp to edit the file.

Reply
0 Kudos
jabesse
Contributor
Contributor

My guess is that %firstboot is the way to go.

Think of it this way: When %post is running, you are not booted from your freshly installed ESXi, but from your install media. All changes are made to the running system (the one booted from install media), which are lost as soon as you reboot. Only after a reboot, you are booted from your installed ESXi, and changes made at that point (%firstboot) are applied to your installation.

Reply
0 Kudos