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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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avlieshout
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I've seen this error before using uda. I don't know a solution, but

it looks like it isn't eda related.

-Arnim

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On Jan 5, 2010, at 4:46 PM, davismisbehavis <communities-emailer@vmware.com

Arnim van Lieshout Blogging: http://www.van-lieshout.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/avlieshout If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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Hemijimi
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Thanks for the info and the link. I have been trying to download the file and it says "The document is being edited/updated by a User and is unavailable at this moment."

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brugh
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unfortunate timing Smiley Wink it's been fixed. you should be able to download the file now.

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brugh
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what you're seeing is no issue. that message always appears and can be ignored.

i'm curious to what the ctrl-F3 and ctrl-F4 screens say.. or if the install is somewhat done, perhaps F11 or wherever the logs appear nowadays Smiley Wink

did you install with our without any fiber links. could you try with the fiber disconnected? i'm assuming you followed the quick startup guide and imported the proper (latest) esx4 dvd files?

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brugh
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could you post the result of your full KS config file? (just hit the 'ks' link behind the esx hostname on the main eda screen)

don't forget to check you're not posting any passwords Smiley Wink

sounds like you may have an issue with your partitioning..

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rosspcs
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I have the same problem, but after the reboot the server sits there saying attempting boot from drive C, this is a HP BL460c G1

Steve

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rosspcs
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Brugh, i seem to be having a similar issue attached is my ks file.

Thanks

Steve

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davismisbehavis
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Hi Brugh

The build was done on a brand new server with no fibre connections (I always do that, don't like to risk anything on the SAN)

The ESX 4.0 Update 1 CD ISO had been uploaded successfully as the build actually completes, we have also used the EDA appliance to upgrade another host, I do remember seeing this message at some point with that test run but it didn't cause us any issues.

I had read somewhere else that this warning could be ignored, however when you press enter to reboot it comes back up flashing with a C: prompt.

We tried leaving it for 15 to 20 minutes to see if it would carry on of it's own accord but with no luck.

Attached is the KS file you requested, I've discarded the post release steps as we aren't even getting that far yet. I made one slight amendment to the ks4.php and that was to add in the --addvmportgroup=0 as I saw this in an example Scott Lowe used in his mastering vSphere book. I also tried the value --addvmportgroup=true as I saw that in the ks.cfg in the root folder of the ESX 4 host we successfully built with the EDA. Neither the default ks4.php or the amended versions made a difference to the eventual outcome.

Keen to get this resolved as my boss now wants to proceed with manual builds as this is taking to long!!! arrrrggghhhh No!!!!

Kind Regards

D.Misbehavis

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davismisbehavis
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Just looking at the partitions I notice that the grand total of the partitions exceeds the size of the virtual disk being created.

Could this be the issue?

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davismisbehavis
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Just to update everyone on this one we found the problem was the partition sizes, the "No COS Nics added by user" message is indeed a red herring as the message appears whether the build is successfull or not.

We recreated the issue on our test HP DL 380 G3 and found this issue was because we were creating a 13GB COS VMDK and then adding in partitions that took it to about 13.4GB.

In the screenshot below I have highlighted the areas you need to check the values of. The first is the COS partition the COS VMDK is put into, ensure that this is bigger than the VMDK being created. The second is the COS VMDK creation itself, make sure that this is big enough to contain all the partions created within it (Shown in the box within the screenshot)

Brugh, thanks for the pointer, your mention of partitions inspired that eureka moment. Up until then the error message had me convinced it was a network related issue.

Regards

D.Misbehavis

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avlieshout
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D.Misbehavis,

Great info. Thanks!

-Arnim

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On Jan 6, 2010, at 10:56 AM, davismisbehavis <communities-emailer@vmware.com

Arnim van Lieshout Blogging: http://www.van-lieshout.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/avlieshout If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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ronaldpj2
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First of all, thanks for a great product. It has really helped us create a uniform deployment mechanism for our ESX environment. There is just one thing that I would like to be able to do, that I can't figure out, maybe someone can help me out.

We are using local storage for VM Swapfile Location, I would like to set this in the post-config script, but so far I have not found a way to do this here (have found, thanks to a few people in the vmug.nl a way to do it though powercli).

Anyone have a command-line that can help me here, or knowledge of the location(s) where this is stored?

Any help is appreciated.

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brugh
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ronald,

setting the swapspace location for a VM is not something you can configure on the server. it's a vm based setting that you can set in the vmx file of each vm. that's easily scripted though..

you are aware that if you place it on local storage, you can't vmotion anymore?

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ronaldpj2
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Hi,

Actually it is possible to set this for a host. It's an advanced option. I have been scraping information to make it work (took a lot of time, since it's not my bread and butter), but I found out a way to change the setting, by doing the following:

      1. Aanpassen VM Swapfile Locatie ###

HostSwapFile=\/vmfs\/volumes\/\`vmkfstools -P \/vmfs\/volumes\/cos-\$HOSTNAME |grep UUID | awk -F\:\ '{ printf(\$2); }'\`

echo \/adv\/Mem\/HostLocalSwapDir = \"\$HostSwapFile\" >>/etc/vmware/esx.conf

The "\'s" are in there because I had to put in into EDA.

First line is there to gather the UUID of the cos VMFS (which in our case is called cos-$HOSTNAME), second line enters the setting into the esx.conf file.

Setting the swap-file location to a local data-store is a setting made at the cluster level, so when the host is joined to the cluster, this setting becomes active.

Also, it is possible to vmotion with a local swap file (at least in vSphere), the swap file is created on the second host. This does take some extra time (seconds), so a VMotion is slower than with a swap-file placed with the VM, but it is possible.

It's also possible to do this with the VI-toolkit. There is a cmd-let that let's you do this, but I wanted to do it during the installation. For anyone who is interested:

Set-VMHost -VMSwapfileDatastore dan : Set-VM -VMSwapFilePolicy InHostDataStore

Thanks to AFokkema, Luc Dekens and sdaems, over at the Dutch VMUG.

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chandlerbing
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I downloaded version .90 but when it boots up it says .87? Anyway I read from vmware site that this supports boot from san but when you import pxefiles it strips all the hba drivers. I tried it and the install can't find any disks. So does this support boot from san and if yes how do you add the hba drivers back?

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hakimzc
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Hi Brugh,

Great appliance, it has saved me a lot of effort!

I do have one question though, we use iSCSI in our company. Each iSCSI box we have has to be told what the iSCSI Name\WWN of the software initiator is on each esx server, to allow it to connect to the iSCSI box.

I notice that the script building tool on the appliance lets you add in iSCSI targets, it asks solely for the IP address of the Data Port on the iSCSI box.

However, each time I build a host using the appliance, the iSCSI name of the initiator changes - the characters on the end of the number seem to be random (e.g. iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:esx01-256b6e22). This represents a problem because I can not set up the iSCSI box to expect a connection from the host (because I cannot tell in advance what the WWN will be).

Am I missing something or is there a way to get the script to set the WWN name (or some other workaround)?

Thanks Brugh,

BBplc

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ronaldpj2
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We had the same issue, and solved it with the following commands:

vimsh -n -e "hostsvc/storage/iscsi_set_name vmhba32 iqn.1998-01.com.vmware:\$HOSTNAME"

This way the Hostname is part of the iSCSI name, but without the random number.

Hope this helps.

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hakimzc
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Hi Ronaldpj2,

Thanks that very helpful!

Very kind of you to reply so quickly.

Kind regards,

BBPLC

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hakimzc
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Hello All,

I am getting used to using the EDA for installing to a single host, but now I want to install esx on multiple hosts.

When I was building a single host, I edited the ks file to create a VMKernel port group and I gave it an IP address, I also got it to do a few other tweaks unique to that host (to connect to an iSCSI box).

As far as I can see, I can only get one ks file for all my servers, but I think I need a different file for each host (or maybe some way of making the single ks file do all my hosts). This is because I need to give unique IP addresses and WWN names to each host's storage adapter etc etc.

I am sure others have encountered this, so your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys,

BBplc

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ronaldpj2
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What we have done is use some logic to translate a "known" ip-address (the VMotion address in this case), to translate it to a different address:

Here we translate the VMotion address which has a third octet of 206 to an iSCSI address, with a third octet of 204

VMip=###HOSTIP###

iSCSIip=\${VMip/.206./.204.}

esxcfg-vmknic -a VMK-Storage -i \$iSCSIip -n 255.255.255.0

esxcli swiscsi nic add -n vmk1 -d vmhba32

And in another part of the script, we translate the variable we just created for the iSCSI IP address to create a second SC connection, where the 4th octet is 30 less than the iSCSI address:

SCStorage=\`echo \$iSCSIip | awk -F. '{ printf("%d.%d.%d.%d\n", \$1,\$2,\$3,\$4-30); }'\`

esxcfg-vswif -a vswif1 -p SC-Storage -i \$SCStorage -n 255.255.255.0

Hope this helps.

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