I was trying to make kickstart iso for unattended installation of ESX 4.1. I followed the procedure mentioned here:
http://www.vmprofessional.com/index.php?content=kickstart_2
But this step
we need to extract the image, and mount it as a loopback device.
[root@esx01 ~]# gunzip initrd.img --suffix .img [root@esx01 ~]# mount -o loop /root/initrd /mnt/floppy
fails asking for mentioning the filesystem. So I tried this:
mount -o loop -t ext2 initrd /mnt/floppy
It says:
VFS: Can't find ext2 filesystem on dev loop0
I tried this:
mount -o loop -t ext3 initrd /mnt/floppy
It says:
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev loop0
I tried this:
mount -o loop -t vfat initrd /mnt/floppy
It says:
VFS: Can't find ext2 filesystem on dev loop0
FAT: Invalid media
Any idea how to make it work?
Thanks
Just had a peek at the directions you were following. ESX 3.0 so you might want to use something a little more current.
http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/automating-vsphere-esx4-host-installations
Hmm, I was able to succeed apparently using the following:
mount -o loop -t vmfs initrd /mnt/floppy
but now I can't copy anything to the mounted directorym, it says permission denied even thought both the source and destination is given all permission
chmod a+rwx initrd
Does /mnt/floppy exist? try just /mnt
It does exist and in fact I can view the contents of the directory:
devices volumes
So the problem is somewhere else seemingly.
used /mnt still no success.
mount
/root/isolinux/initrd on /mnt type vmfs (rw)
ls -lcth /root/isolinux/initrd
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root 221M May 3 18:59 /root/isolinux/initrd
touch /mnt/a.txt
touch: cannot touch /mnt/a.txt : Permission denied
Thanks
Hmm a little interesting discovery. After
mount -o loop -t vmfs /root/isolinux/initrd /mnt
what is happening is it is actually mounting the whole "/vmfs" directory as /mnt. weird, for sure. initrd has no role in the mount process. What a crap!!!
So the original problem stil remains - initrd can't be mounted using
mount -o loop -t
with any filesystem. (as vmfs doesn't count).
Just had a peek at the directions you were following. ESX 3.0 so you might want to use something a little more current.
http://blog.laspina.ca/ubiquitous/automating-vsphere-esx4-host-installations
Are we supposed to use the ks.cfg file hosted in a remote machine? The approach suggested by the blog seems to be doing exactly that. This is kind of creepy. To do scripted install on one machine we have to resort to another machine. This is indeed a funny idea.
The “ks=” append option entry can also be one of file://… cdrom://… ftp://… nfs://… usb and UUID:ID/… So no it isn't necessary to use the file from a remote location.
This is very helpful answer indeed. But there is some question, when it mentions file://usr/blah/blah, the file path is not with respect the "/" of the cd file system, it looks like it is from something within the initrd.img. Please correct me if I am wrong.
That would be correct. Have you looked through the ESX installation documents. http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf
I didn't know the document existed. It looks cool. So it somewhat solves the problem without messing with the initrd.img. So technically we can try putting the ks.cfg in the cdrom root file system alone without messing with the initrd.img. Then it would be a very simple procedure but then why would the original author of kickstart went through such a complicated procedure that is a matter worth investigating. If this works, then that would be world's best solution (haha and I would give you a virtual treat). But why did the initrd.img not mount that would be another matter worth investigating.
So many possibilities and if the single KS file works for you then it isn't a bad solution.
Thanks bro. It works!! I recognizes the ks.cfg in usb. So you are an angel now.
However the fact that I could not mount initrd.img file is really irritating. If it is created by someone then it should be able to be opened/read that too.