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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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brugh
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did you check the /var/log/daemon.log? usually any reason why dhcp server doesn't start is stated in there..

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B-Bird
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I’m able to deploy ESXi 4.1 with EDA 0.94.

The diskpartitioning, IP adresses, hostname and root pw changes work in the deployment.

At the post scripts execution stage I receive an error in the user-defined script (error 512).

I left everything default in EDA except DHCP settings and network settings.

In the script part I only added a portgroup on vswitch0 to test the deployment.

Everything I try results in the post script failure.

Does anyone have an idea?

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ronaldpj2
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I know it kind of defeats the purpose, but I did manage to deploy ESXi with a form of scripting. It is just that for it to work, i manually editted the file /var/www/ks/ks4i.php on the EDA.

What I did was the following:

- Under line "%post --unsupported remove all scriping and replace with reboot
- Add line: "%firstboot --unsupported --interpreter=busybox --level=998"
- Under this heading, manually insert the commands to customize your installation

-----
If you need additional scripts to run, you can do things like:
-----
%firstboot --unsupported --interpreter=busybox --level=9999
# do additional customization
# in this section
------

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vinny95
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Hi Brugh,

I just downloaded the v0.94 archive but I do not see how to import it on an ESX.

I tried to copy the .vmdk & .vmx files but in the datastore I can't "Add to inventory".

How could I import EDA ?

Thx,

vince

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brugh
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the 0.94 release doesn't come as a .ovf so you have to import it manually. easiest way is to use vmware converter but if that's not an option, use vdiskmanager from the ESX console to import the vmdk file as a thick disk.

also, if you're using a pre-vsphere environment, you may want to change the HWversion in the vmx file to '4' where it says '7' now before you import it.

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Arrow1
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Thank you for contacting me. I am out the office with poor mail connectivity. I will handle your email as soon as I will be back (march 3rd).

This e-mail and any attached files are confidential, intended solely for the use of the addressee, and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended addressee, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, copying, distribution or other dissemination or use of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have mistakenly received this e-mail, please notify us immediately and then delete this e-mail from your system. This e-mail sent to and from our company is professional in nature and may be monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and to protect our business. This e-mail does not constitute a commitment by Altimate-Group, unless it contains an express statement to the contrary from an authorized representative. This e-mail and its transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error free as they can be intercepted, corrupted, amended, lost or destroyed, arrive late, or contain viruses. Altimate-Group or its affiliated entities are in no way liable for any errors or omissions in the content of this e-mail. Thank you.

Regards Bernard
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galibai
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Hi, I am running into strange issue. Before installing ESX via EDA, I login to my ESX Server and with fdisk cmd, I can see that all my hosts are running on eda partition.
Accordingly, I make changes to EDA and all the partitions are pointing to /dev/sda. When the EDA starts the installation it gives error message that it is not able to find /dev/sda partition. I then try /dev/sdb and it works.
I need to install ESX on bunch on servers. I don't want to make changes for every server. I want that once, the change it done to EDA, it should be seamless and ESX should be installed on all the physical servers.

I am using Dell server and EDA 0.91

Any suggestions/ideas how to make this work ?

Thanks

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galibai
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Any updates ?

Thanks

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brugh
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actually yes. i did some final testing and bugfixing yesterday and v0.95 is available as of now.

get it at http://virtuall.eu/downloads/ and let me know things you like (or not) at this forum!

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brugh
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doesn't dell have some sort of hidden management partition?

if you set it to sdb in the eda configuration page it should be the same for all hosts.. what exactly is the problem you're running into? what do you see on the screens when you press ctrl-F3 and ctrl-F4 during installation?

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rholgate
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When I import it too esx4.0

Virtual CD-ROM uses a controller that is not supported error....

Rob Holgate

Arrow ECS

Mobile: 07771 948050

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bulletprooffool
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Drat . . .just been doing a write-up on 0.94 for my blog (and got it working etc . . but haven't even published it) - now you let 0.95 out?

good effort though 🙂 - thanks

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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galibai
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I don't think dell has some hidden partitions. The problem here is, the ESX 3.5 was installed manually for all the hosts and when I give fdisk cmd, it shows me /dev/sda is partition where ESX 3.5 was isntalled.

Assuming that EDA will also install 4.1 on /dev/sda I went ahead and gave those details to EDA. But when the installation starts, it gives a error message "failed to find /dev/sda partition. So, I have to start giving different partition in EDA hoping one of them will work...

I would like to know the trick, OR what needs to be done, so that we don't have to do the guessing work.

Thanks

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heskez
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Brugh? Is this appliance supported by Vmware Workstation 7? I can't get eth0 running in some funny way...

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bulletprooffool
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Yes - walkthrough guide at:

http://wp.me/p1ok2j-62

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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tsmit
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I also do have problems with networking with EDA 0.95

First of all I do had trouble importing the appliance into WS 6.5

This I solved by using OVFtool from vmware.

After inserting it into WS 6.5 I do start the appliance and I seems well.

I do a reconfigure from the menu and put my servername, IP, mask, gateway, nameserver into this screen.

After this I do a reboot and tried to conect to this applicance. No succes.

Going back to the reconfigure screen show me that the appliance lost IP, mask en gateway but not my nameserver and servername????

After this I tried something with ifconfig on commandline level. But there is no eth0.

I did er remove from the NIC within the WS and booted the appliance. Shut it down again and add a new NIC. Boot it, same result.

Is there some one who has an lookalike problem.

Please be gentle with me, I'm not a linux guy.

Thanks in advance.

Message was edited by: tsmit    On the new EDA 0.95 I could not find an eth0 device. On an EDA 0.91 I could find it with ifconfig.  On the EDA 0.95 I only have an "lo" device and no "eth0"    Thanks again.  Tom

Message was edited by: tsmit

Message was edited by: tsmit Logging in to the appliance I see there is a file /etc/network/interfaces. This file contains information about "eth0" device but no "eth0" device available on the system only "lo" The content of this file is auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static            address 192.168.73.249            netmask 255.255.255.0            gateway 192.168.73.100 So all this looks oke to me.

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brugh
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Importing the EDA into an environment can cause it to redetect the network card. since a while, linux tries to keep all network cards it ever knew to a their specific ethX device. this works fine for physical environments but for virtual appliances it disturbs flexibility.

luckily there's an easy fix; just remove the files from /etc/udev/rules.d and reboot. (in EDA go to the patch menu and type 'rm /etc/udev/rules.d/*' in the exec box).

i think i'll put a quick fix in the next patch release. Smiley Wink

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brugh
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cool write-up Smiley Happy

one small detail, the 0.95 doesn't come as a vmdk/vmx zipfile but a regular ovf. that should eliminate the need to import the disk with vmkfstools and creating a new VM.

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Arrow1
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Thank you for contacting me. I am out the office with poor mail connectivity. I will handle your email as soon as I will be back.

This e-mail and any attached files are confidential, intended solely for the use of the addressee, and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended addressee, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, reproduction, copying, distribution or other dissemination or use of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. If you have mistakenly received this e-mail, please notify us immediately and then delete this e-mail from your system. This e-mail sent to and from our company is professional in nature and may be monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and to protect our business. This e-mail does not constitute a commitment by Altimate-Group, unless it contains an express statement to the contrary from an authorized representative. This e-mail and its transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error free as they can be intercepted, corrupted, amended, lost or destroyed, arrive late, or contain viruses. Altimate-Group or its affiliated entities are in no way liable for any errors or omissions in the content of this e-mail. Thank you.

Regards Bernard
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JamesBuzz
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I'm having what looks to be the same problem with v0.95 and networking.

  • I deployed eda-v0.95.ovf using vSphere Client connected to my ESXi 4.1 host
  • When I power on the eda VM I'm presented with the following screen:

  • I select reconfigure and put in my ip information:

  • When I click OK things look good:

  • But I can't connect to http://192.168.1.94 via web browser and I can't ping it
  • If I select Reboot I lose the ip address (but not the Hostname I changed):

See attachment for screenshots (I couldn't figure out how to embed them in the msg).

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