ESXi console hot keys

[RTmxa]

Hi,

I need to disable ESXi F2 & F12 keys and the console display (while I run a first boot script).

Are there any commands in ESXi that I can run to achieve this?

Thanks

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You could look at modifying /etc/init.d/DCUI to disable the DCUI during your first bootprocess.  You could create a secondary "oem.tgz" file that would overwrite the default copy of this file and then have your first boot process removed this file and update boot.cfg.  You can enable TSM and TSM (SSH) with vim-cmd during firstboot, but that option isn't exposed for the DCUI.

I don't think modifying /etc/init.d/DCUI removes access to ALT+F12.  Do you have any particular concerns or security requirements that require these options disabled during the first boot process?

[RTmxa]

Thanks Dave.

Just to elaborate on the first point a little more. What I need at first boot is the ability to read some configurations from the console (preferably through some GUI I was thinking python).

So ideally on first boot my script should be able to prompt the user to enter some values and then save those values and then continue the normal boot process.

Also when you refer to DCUI and disabling that, I assume you mean the screen which allows customizing the ESXi server using F2 etc. Is this what you meant as well?

To your second point the tendancy of folks seems to be to proceed to configure the system even when my first boot script is running. The only way to prevent this seems to be to disable that functionality temporarily. I think its F2/F12 that i was referring to on the welcome screen not ALT+F12 (sorry abt that)

[Dave_Mishchenko]

If I understand correctly you're looking for something similar to the Windows mini-setup / Welcome process that can be run as part of sysprep.  I'm not sure that would be possible with ESXi today, but you might be able to use a kickstart script hosted on a remoted http / ftp sever.