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brugh
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ESX deployment appliance v1.05

https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/products/esx-deployment-appliance-eda

ESX Deployment Appliance (EDA) is a small and easy to use appliance

that makes deploying ESX servers a breeze. It has a very intuitive

web-interface that can configure and deploy dozens of ESX servers in

minutes. It has a script-builder that will allow any admin to create

%post-scripts that will do most anything one needs to get the ESX hosts

up and running! Even if deploying with RDP/Altiris or the UDA, this

script-builder can help setting those up very quickly.

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smudger
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Turns out the appliance is using ssh v1.0 which isn't supported with my version of filezilla. I took the easy route and have winscp so all good now.

Thanks

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racerzer0
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brugh,

Thanks for the udpated appliance! Once thing I noticed is that it is stripping the zeros out of the hostname when I define an ESX host....? So I when I try esxhost001... it returns esxhost1. Checked the ks file and it is missing the zeros as well.

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jkempthorne
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I have been trying for almost a week to download the EDA appliance. The link, http://www.virtualappliances.eu/ does not work. I get the following message:

"This account has been suspended.
Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources."

Is there another locaton I can use?

Regards,

Jim

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smudger
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Seems the website has been off the air for the last 245hours or so.

I've been checking to see if there are any dated docs on the install and ideally a "how to guide"/ known issues - this thread is getting difficult to search through for tips and gotch-yas.

I don't believe there is any alternative source for download - vmware.com state there is no bit torrent available...

Neil

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brugh
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yeah, the colo the servers are running in is having a lot of trouble with power outages and all sorts of other issues. i'm trying to move the stuff out of there to a more reliable provider.

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brugh
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yeah.. it's all a matter of money. you guys should've hit the paypal button or the google ads a bit more often Smiley Wink if you have a cheap provider, you get cheap service unfortunately.

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Mouchel
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johnwilk
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H,

How I would use the fs.php functionality. Is it to upload a separate script which I can then execute from the appliance and does this upload apply globally or locally to each server. An example here qould go long way Smiley Happy

Regards

John

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johnwilk
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P.S. Home page web header needs updated as it still reports 0.85 Smiley Wink

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brugh
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ah yes, i forgot about that one. i should set a global version number somewhere instead of hardcoding it into a couple of files.

that does however give me a chance to demonstrate the fs.php Smiley Wink so erhm.. i forgot about the version number on purpose..cough

you could download the index.php by typing '/var/www/eda/index.php' in the middle input box, edit the file locally (line 26) and upload it again by selecting it in the bottom input box. it'll move it in /tmp so you'll have to type 'mv /tmp/index.php /var/www/eda' in the top line and hit 'exec'.

- or -

you do a search / replace in the top input box and change the line on the fliy by typing:

perl -p -i -e 's/0\.85/0.87/' /var/www/eda/index.php

(watch the quotes, slashes and backslashes) ..

the update plan for the fs.php page is that i'll distribute small changes as update files which you can upload to the appliance through the fs.php page and extract them in the 'exec' line. relatively simple way to quickly push small patches.

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brugh
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the download link on http://virtualappliances.eu points to http://virtuall.eu/knowledge/eda-v0.87.zip. this last link is not static an may change every now and again so when available, use the virtualappliances.eu website.. i really hope i can get the issues with the colo resolved soon. until then there's little i can do unfortunately.

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brugh
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yeah, that's a bit of a hidden feature. i had to take the 'repeat' into account and changed the servername input somewhat. what you can do if you want zeros prepended is to imput the servername as 'esxhost###'. the repeat function will fill the # with a sequense of numbers. i just set this up quickly and didn't test how foolproof it is so there may be some issues that i haven't seen yet. so i didn't mention it before but since you ask so specifically.... Smiley Wink

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smudger
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Hello all,

Has anyone done any work on changing the COS size from a script? This feature in the appliance would be quite handy - maybe for another release.

I did some tests using "sed" to edit the esx.conf and grub.conf files from 272 to 512 mb but this didn't seem very successful.

Any other ideas?

thanks

Neil

ps: Brugh - keep up the great work!

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johnwilk
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Hi Neil,

I had exactly the same problem as I tried setting my COS to 800MB. As a workaroud, I scripted the creation of a shell script and ran it post-build......:(

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brugh
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actually, scripting the kernel memory is easy enough. BUT using 'sed' is very dangerous. sed has an internal buffer of only 8k. that means that if files are larger, it cuts the file off at the 8k marker leaving it useless. either you move the file to a backup first and sed from the backup to the original file, or you use 'perl -p -i -e'.

so to change the console memory to 800M, use these lines:

perl -p -e -i 's/memSize = \"272\"/memSize = \"800\"/g' /etc/vmware/esx.conf

esxcfg-boot -g

esxcfg-boot -b

the last 2 will regenerate a grub.conf and do the necessary bootfile work. this does require a reboot so at the end of the script, add

shutdown -r +3 -t 60 &

(and dont forget the & or the script won't finish)

you can easily add that to the script builder too now Smiley Wink just go to 'manage scriptparts', hit 'add', enter a description, join 3 lines with a '\n' and hit 'save'.

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racerzer0
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Thanks.. I tried adding the # signs.. but with limited success. At this point, while I can generate 1 host profile at a time with 001, 002... It doesn't work as I would expect to do a range. If I enter esxhost##6, for example, I will get esxhost006, esxhost016, esxhost026, etc...

For now I will have to continue adding one at a time.

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marklemon
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This message board has gone very quiet, has some other solution replaced this one for people?

Or are all the bugs sorted?

I am getting errors very similar to those posted way back in 2007.

But my disks reportd are "cciss/c0d0" and that's what I've configured to be used in my kickstart file.

I'll attach some screen grabs of the errors and my kickstart disk layout.

Anyone? I'll be quick to give points for helpful suggestions, max for something that gets me going!

cheers,

Kevin

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marklemon
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Oh, I'm using ESX3.5 Update 3. Is that a problem?

one more attachment, my kickstart file:

-


bootloader --location=mbr --driveorder=

timezone Europe/London

skipx

install

text

lang en_US

langsupport --default en_US

keyboard us

mouse none

reboot

firewall --disabled

url --url http://17x.1x.1x.100/esx/

network --bootproto static --device eth0 --ip 17x.1x.1x.x --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 17x.1x.1x.x --nameserver 17x.1x.1x.x --hostname esxbuild3.domain --addvmportgroup=0

  1. Load drivers

  2. Ignore these SAN LUNs

  3. This assumes that /dev/cciss/c0d0, /dev/sdb are SAN LUNs

  4. and you are installing to a local LUN

  5. Bootloader options

bootloader --location=mbr

  1. The following is the partition information you requested

  2. Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed

  3. here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is

  4. not guaranteed to work

clearpart --all --drives=/dev/cciss/c0d0

part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=250 cciss/c0d0 --asprimary

part / --fstype ext3 --size=10000 cciss/c0d0 --asprimary

part swap --size=1600 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --asprimary

part /tmp --fstype ext3 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --size=5120

part /var --fstype ext3 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --size=4096

part /opt --fstype ext3 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --size=2048

part /home --fstype ext3 --ondisk=cciss/c0d0 --size=1024

vmaccepteula

vmlicense --mode=server --server=27000@vcenter.domain --edition=esxFull

%packages

@base

%post

cat > /tmp/esxcfg.sh <<EOF1

#!/bin/bash

esxcfg-firewall --allowOutGoing

#esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic1 vSwitch0

#esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic2 vSwitch0

#esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic3 vSwitch0

#

#esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch1

#

#esxcfg-vswitch -A Internal

#

#

#perl -pi -e "s/PermitRootLogin no/PermitRootLogin yes/" /etc/ss

#sshd_config

#service sshd restart

esxcfg-firewall --blockOutgoing

EOF1

  1. Make esxcfg.sh eXcutable

chmod +x /tmp/esxcfg.sh

  1. Backup original rc.local file

cp /etc/rc.d/rc.local /etc/rc.d/rc.local.bak

  1. Make esxcfg.sh run from rc.local and make rc.local reset itself

cat >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local <<EOF2

cd /tmp

/tmp/esxcfg.sh

mv -f /etc/rc.d/rc.local.bak /etc/rc.d/rc.local

EOF2

-


cheers!

Kevin

Message was edited by: Kevin/marklemon

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brugh
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what a strange way to open a new message.. last message is from 2 days ago on one of the most active threads in this corner of the vmtn.. ohwell..

problem you're having seems to be your partition scheme. some lines are missing the --ondisk part. if you're unsure what it should look like, try resetting the appliance to factory default (save your settings first) and check the partitioning scheme in there.

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bggb29
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I can not get the initial boot image to load on either a server or laptop.

I get a dhcp address from the appliance and fail to tftp the image. I ran a port scan on the server and tftp is open.

I can connect via tftp using a mac client.

I have the cd iso loaded and can import pxe boot files the screen reports created and saved for the pxe files.

I am running the appliance on a esx server, Will it run from a server or do I need Workstation 6.5 to run the appliance.

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