ESXi Autodeploy from PXE

[_systematic_]

Hello everybody!

I have been tasked with automatically deploying ESXi hypervisors through PXE (HP, Huawei).

At the moment I have deployed: one ESXi host, vcenter on this host, dhcp-server (Windows). How to deploy a TFTP server for this task? Is it possible on Windows? What exactly should I do next?

What are the correct dhcp settings? TFTP?

Please help.

[berndweyand]

you can use any free tftp-server for windows. vcsa has a built-in tftp-server, but is a little bit tricky to activate and not supported yet.

then you need to put the file undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired (BIOS) or snponly64.efi.vmw-hardwired (EFI) to the root of the tftp-server and configure DHCP option 66 (IP of tftpserver) and option 67 (bootfile)

[_systematic_]

Okay, I set it up. And the new host connects to the TFTP server, but I have an error. And how do I deliver the ESXi image to the host now? Where should it be?

[_systematic_]

[berndweyand]

seems that you are new to autodeploy ? here is a good guide for the basics and for setup that helps me.

if you have vsphere 6.7 autodeploy is integrated in html-client - no need to configure via powercli

https://esxsi.com/2016/07/19/auto-deploy-install/

[NathanosBlightc · Accepted solution]

It's possible to deploy any type of TFTP server/tools/Apps based on your choice, but just you need to download a set of iPXE files from the auto-deploy server and copy them to the TFTP server.

Check the following link, I hope it can help you to achieve ...

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/blog/vsphere-auto-deploy

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was it helpful? Let us know by completing this short survey here.

[_systematic_]

Thanks to all! My mistake - i I didn't copy all the files into the TFTP directory I downloaded from the vCenter server. Its work now. Now I'll be tuning Host Profiles.