Creating an image of my ESXi with file system intact?

[azsvdk]

Hi all,

We're trying to create a universal install image for a large deployment right now. The Image Builder seems to work well with our VIBs, but not some of the other changes made to the file system.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[zXi_Gamer]

Have you looked at : 1) pxe booting, 2) Auto-deploy

[MKguy]

I would prefer a scripted approach that makes these change automatically after installation. But you could try editing the files inside the S.V00 container on the ISO image directly. It contains the main part of the raw filesystem image:

tar xvz S.V00

vmtar -x vmvisor-sys.tar.vtar -v -o test.tar  #(Note: vmtar is available on ESXi)

tar xv test.tar

Make the changes in the files and then re-pack everything again.

[Jayden56]

Hi

Welcome to the communities.

I will suggest PXE .

For more please visit -www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_4_pxe_boot_esxi.pdf   

"The most incredible things happen in life when you decide to achieve them"

[azsvdk]

I'll try that method, thanks for the advice.

Silly question: If I try to do tar xvz S.V00, I get:

invalid tar magic

Any ideas?

[MKguy]

Uh, I don't remember if the outermost layer S.V00 was actually gzipped or not, but I could open and extract it with a compression tool such as 7zip just fine.

[azsvdk]

Got home and tried it with 7zip - worked perfectly, thank you.

Will let everyone know how it goes