ESX deployment appliance v1.05

[brugh]

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.

[77seb77]

Thanks for your answer, you're right it would be easier but I can't use it in my environnement.

I found the solution to my variables problem (with the help of colleagues), in fact the script is "recorded" in a new one (esxcfg.sh) when the deployement occurs. So my variables are filed in the first script and won't exist anymore (only blank values) in the esxcfg.sh (which is launched after reboot) so I need to add \ before the $ and everything is working.I'm not sure to be very clear...

for example :

VMotion=\$(VMIP)

esxcfg-vmknic -a -i \$VMotionIP -n \$Subnet "VMotion"

[brugh]

yesterday evening i released the 0.90 version. new in this version are:

• ESX 4 support

• ESXi 4 support (installable and stateless!)

• ESX 4 script parts (post any good scriptparts on this forum or PM me and I'll integrated it into the appliance)

• new first config screen

• some bugs removed (patch system, backups, host input routine, apache tweaks)

Check it out on

[avlieshout]

Herco,

I just installed EDA 0.90 in VMware Fusion 2.04 and on the console I get "Buffer I/O error on device sda1" error messages.

Any idea/help?

-Arnim van Lieshout

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[java_cat33]

Nice work - I've just deployed a vSphere box in my lab using EDA v0.90 without any issues. Impressive!

[brugh]

hmm... i only know those messages from physical hard drive problems. did you try a fsck (or whatever apple calls that)?

if your physical drive is fine, a little more info would help. does it occur during boot, at the same time every time? or before it starts to boot? or randomly at runtime?

[brugh]

thank you

[Protegimus]

The good news is yes, I have deployed ESX 3.5 U4 to IBM servers, x3650 model in our case. I also encountered the same issue, stopping at the choose language section.

The servers had two four port PCI-e NIC's in addition to the two onboard ports, with the first onboard NIC initially assigned as interface eth0.

Removing the two PCI-e NIC's for the first phase of the install resolved the problem. When the install reaches the point of the 1st reboot, I shut the system down and installed the two additional NIC's.

After booting the install continues as normal with an additional reboot required (as always) to complete the reconfiguration for new hardware, then the KS section is processed and all network interfaces are configured correctly.

Note that I did test configuring EDA to use the specific network interface from eth0 through eth9, but this still did not work.

No issues with multiple network interfaces in a test environment on VMware Workstation 6.5 (host only networking, or bridged).

For othes that have reported the above problem, this is definitely worth trying.

[rock0n]

Sounds great that you made it working anyway. So you dont think the RSAII is problem?

Next week i am back in the datacenter in bavaria. I will hopefully have some time between beergarden and teaching to strip off the internal NICs for testing

regards

rm

[brugh]

damn.. forgot to update the version number.. if you want to fix this, go to the 'patch' menu and type 'echo 0.90 > /etc/version' in the exec box..

[solgae]

with the new 0.90 appliance, I am getting this error when deploying ESX 4.0:

There was a problem with the Gateway Address specified on the command line. Error: IP string contains an invalid first octet. Press to reboot....

Any ideas? I checked and re-checked the gateway address to make sure it's valid.

[Zarum]

Hey Guys

Nice Work

i've no problem for deploy ESX4 whith KS

But when i'm trying a manual install i've got this message

Failed to load VMKernel (see attachement)

any ideas ?

thanks

[Zsoldier]

I downloaded what I thought was 0.90, but the mgmt site shows v0.88? Did I download an old version by accident? I downloaded the v0.90a ovf and the 0.90 vmdk.

[brugh]

no, 0.88 is 0.90. i just forgot to update the version number at the end. read 4 messages back for a quick fix.. :smileysilly:

[brugh]

hmm that's strange. at what point do you get that error? at first boot? or after you got some sort of configscreen?

what happens if you type 'manual mem=512M' at the bootprompt?

[brugh]

could you post one of the 'ks' files that it generates? never seen that error before

[KyleWeir]

Hey I'm running eda .9 and I noticed that my vm workstation clan and my vkernel gateway weren't right. This worked fine in 3.5 but with 4.0 it seems like something has changed anyone else notice this.

[acamus]

I'm Getting the error "could not find kernel vmlinuz on EDA" on v.88(.90)

Shouldn't the vmlinuz be in tftpboot?

root@em2:/var/lib/tftpboot# ls

cd custom.tgz grph license.tgz mboot.c32 menu.c32 pxelinux.0 sys.vgz vmkboot.gz

cim.vgz empty.tgz image.tgz logo.lss menu oem.tgz pxelinux.cfg vmk.gz

[Zarum]

form me:

root@eda:/var/lib/tftpboot# ls

cd grph logo.lss oem.tgz vmk.gz

cim.vgz image.tgz mboot.c32 pxelinux.0 vmkboot.gz

custom.tgz initrd.img menu pxelinux.cfg vmlinuz

empty.tgz license.tgz menu.c32 sys.vgz

[Zarum]

hello

i've got no problem when ks is specified

i tried whith mem=512M and it works

but at the end of the configuration

he asks me for installation media (see attachement)

EDIT :

Ok after many try

i have the solution (i think)

in pxelinux.cfg.default

i've written

label esx

kernel vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.img mem=512M url=http://ip.of.eda/esx/

and voila

installation is full cdless

i hope this tip help someone

thanks again for your appliance and your help

Message was edited by: Zarum

[brugh]

yes there should.. did you click 'import pxe files'? every time you insert a cd you have to click that link. check out the quick start guide at