Vsphere boot process

[opinder]

Hi

Is anyone having detailed boot process of vsphere.

regards,

opinder.

[AndreTheGiant]

Have a look at this thread (but it's old):

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/80680

And also:

http://virtualbox-provenpractice.blogspot.com/2009/04/esx-server-30x353i-boot-process.html

Andre

[opinder]

Hi Andre

Actually i am little bit confused.As per documentation service console vm contains root partition and that vm can reside on a Fibre channel disk (non shared).Now /boot partition has to be on local hard disk as per documentation and /boot partion contains grub loader.When system boots,does it look for / first on service console vm (on the non shared disk)and then finds /boot on the local disk to start the groub boot loader.IS that the sequence???

I am new to linux so may be not able to understand the sequence properly.

Pls guide.

Regards,

opinder.

[AndreTheGiant]

On ESX 4.0 there is basically a boot partition to handle the bootstrap process.

It include the kernel and the device drivers needed for the bootstrap (into the initrd file).

The service console root filesystem is on vmdk that is on VMFS partition.

This partition can be locally (usual) or a SAN LUN (not shared).

But the second case is usual used for boot from SAN option, in this case ALSO the /boot partition is on the LUN (cause the host has no local disk).

Andre