Cloning ESXi 4.1 installation on USB stick

[andrey_paramono]

Hello,

Tried to find an appropriate information but so far unsuccessful. Let's say I have a couple of servers I want to boot ESXi 4.1 from usb stick. Can I assume that copying that USB flash drive after initial stage of ESXi installation is enough to insert a copy to a new HW box and boot it up with unique ID etc?

Or I'm wrong and unique id is assigned on the 1st stage of installation when CD content is transferred to the USB flash drive and that copy is useless as a source of "cloning".

Please let me know.

[MauroBonder]

This not is possible today. But will be supported in vsphere5.

To install with usb check :

http://www.vladan.fr/how-to-install-esxi-40-on-usb-memory-key/

http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/ESXi_USB_install.php

With vsphere, you can install and configure all with Host Profiles, to deploy customization of configurations.

[andrey_paramono]

Thanks for the info.

>>This not is possible today. But will be supported in vsphere5.

Can you please point me to the documentation or release notes?

What is the result if I proceed with that?

Is any kind of SID being written on the 1st stage of install?

Thanks in advance.

[MauroBonder]

May i wrong understand your question.

Might this will be useful for you http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/89313

In vSphere 5.0 auto deploy will be "native" - http://www.virtualizetips.com/2011/07/whats-new-in-vmware-vsphere-esxi-5/

You need do if you can do one or more installations with same USB stick ? - If this is your question - Yes, you can

Apologize.

[andrey_paramono]

Thanks for your help.

Here's the full story -

I have 50-100 servers with SD card slot which can be mounted as HDD (and booted from).

So my idea is to prepare 50-100 SD cards and ship them to a remote datacenter with instructions how to insert each to a specific server.

Here's the idea's core - I have a master install to which I just run 1st stage of ESX installation (regular installtion from a CD when one has to press F11 to proceed). Please note - this is *before* 1st reboot. So the card is taken out before 1st reboot and I create a DD copy of it (that's what I call "master image"). Then, I just duplicate 50-100 SD cards to send to a remote datacenter.

My assumption is that none of the actual HW/SID assignment is done on the initial installation stage and after a fresh SD card is created from that "master image" it can be booted and assigned IP and inserted into vCenter server and will be working without any issues etc.

Hope I explained it

[DSTAVERT]

During the install a UUID is generated. The generation process uses the NIC (why install requires a supported network card). The uniqueness of the UUID isn't necessarily critical but . . .  It is certainly possible to have a first boot process to reset the UUID.

[MauroBonder]

There is no problem, which will record as the hosts will be single issue of the license and hostname with FQDN.

If the copy of the installer is on disk, will not have any problem.

[andrey_paramono]

Thank you,

DSTAVERT and MauroBonder .

Let me see how UUID of a ESXi host can be checked out and do an experiment. I will post results in this topic.

Thanks,

Andrey

[DSTAVERT]

Looking forward to your update.

The old 3.5 method of install still works. Expanding and expanding and expanding the ISO until you get to the DD image which you then use dd to write to the SD card. Might be worth a look too. Since that wouldn't have any UUID established it might be a cleaner way to start.