VMware Virtual Appliances Community
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

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.

850 Replies
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

absolutely Smiley Wink just add 'shutdown -r now -t 120' at the end of the script and it will initiate a reboot with a 2 minute delay. may need a little more time to allow the pegasus scripts to finish (check ctrl-F1 when the scripts run).

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

wds and eda can't run on the same network segment. they both use a pxe-like protocol.

you can however disable the dhcp server on the eda and add dhcp options 66 and 67 to a windows dhcp server for specific mac addresses. only those mac addresses will look for the eda while all other clients look for a wds server. only problem is that you have to manually add mac adresses exceptions to the current dhcp server which can be quite a pain. but ofcourse you only need to do that once so it's not that bad.

Reply
0 Kudos
racerzer0
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I did add the shutdown command to the end of the script... however, what I noticed is this part (below) of the scirpt doesn't run.. nor do the pegasus scripts finish. The ESX server dos reboot.. and when it comes back... it tries to re run the POST script.

esxcfg-firewall --blockOutgoing

+EOF1

# Make esxcfg.sh eXcutable
chmod +x /tmp/esxcfg.sh

# Backup original rc.local file
cp /etc/rc.d/rc.local /etc/rc.d/rc.local.bak

# 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+

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

you have to start the shutdown in the background. add a '&' at the end of the line and the rest of the script will execute as intended.

Reply
0 Kudos
smudger
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi,

I've downloaded and imported using converter and directly from a datastore. On powering on the appliance I get "Operating System" not found...

Brugh - I downloaded the appliace from your site, followed the quicksetup items, guess I'm missing something?!

Thanks in advance,

Neil

Reply
0 Kudos
solgae
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi, this sounds like an excellent tool, but what if I want to configure the ESX to boot from SAN?

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

if you get operating system not found that usually means it uses the wrong scsi emulator. it's ok to use converter but do not change the buslogic/lsilogic settings!

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

that's a good one Smiley Wink the tool is totally built around having save ESX installations with SAN connected without the chance to accidentally format a SAN disk.

now to bypass that, you could edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled and remove line 53 (the redirection for netstg2.img). do NOT hit 'import PXE bootfiles' and set the partitions to be on /dev/sda.

let me know if that works Smiley Wink

Reply
0 Kudos
solgae
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hmm, chances are you would configure the server in the first place so that only a boot LUN would be present to the server, and disable any IDE disks. That's how VMware recommends it.

It would be handy if we have an option to keep the HBA drivers just in case I want to boot from LUN. You could give a warning or something if we're going to do that. Boot from LUN will be required for installing ESX on diskless blade servers.

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

you can configure the server any way you like. it doesn't need a cdrom to install when you use the eda. it uses network boot that any modern server supports.

i think i could create an option to not strip the HBA drivers from the installation set.. i'll put it on the 'to think about and consider'-list Smiley Wink but the method i described should work as it does the same thing manually as the appliance would otherwise do.

Reply
0 Kudos
solgae
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Just to confirm....after editing that file, I do NOT want to import PXE files if I want to keep the HBA drivers? Just leave the ESX CD mounted to the EDA server?

I am testing this on VMware workstation as I speak. Bit of a challenge to get DHCP working since I'm still a Linux noob, but everything seems to work well. Only thing I would wish is to not have to type in the host name right after the pxe boot.....for a true unattended install....

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

OK, since everbody went to bed early after christmas dinner i was stuck to the tv with some old bad movies and figured that was a complete waste of time. so i thought i'd instead fix the eda 0.85 to be release ready!

and here it is. download it through or

several bugfixes, no serious ones, just some things like the apache password now changes too from the web interface, things like that.

it has a new scriptbuilder interface that makes it even easier to create a basic setup script even for people without any scripting knowledge. i also created a quick scriptpart editor to add your own bits to it. any smart bits are always welcome. either leave them here or on virtualappliances.eu.

the ESXi support works but the unattended part didn't work as i thought it would and i haven't had the time to figure out what's going on there. but i didnt want to wait anymore so people could have a go at the new version.

let me know!

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Reply
0 Kudos
solgae
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I tried your workaround and found that site-enabled is a directory under /etc/apache2. I looked under the 000-default file and there was an alias concerning netstg2.bin. I tried commenting that out, and now the install fails midpoint stating that ESX Server 3 installation tree in the directory doesn't match the boot media. Any ideas?

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

aah, then you have the bootfiles from an earlier version still there. doesn't matter much but you'll have to import the pxe files now. and hit save on the frontpage to generate a new menu.

Reply
0 Kudos
Hereiam714
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Great deployment app! It appears that I've stumble upon an issue regarding the 'ksdevice'. In version 0.81, eth0 was the ksdevice for my deployment and everything worked accordingly, however once I upgraded to 0.85, the kickstart portion of the deployment stops at the ksdevice selection screen. I'm including a screen shot of the ksdevice selection.

Here's the ks line

network --bootproto static --device eth0 --ip 192.168.1.170 --netmask 255.255.255.0 --gateway 192.168.1.1 --nameserver 192.168.1.10 --hostname esx01.localhost --addvmportgroup=0

Thanks

Reply
0 Kudos
KyleWeir
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Brugh,

Or anyone else who may be on here that has a good idea of how to do this. In my environment I've got about 25 ESX BLADES ( most are running 3.5) I have setup EDA 8.1 (I'm upgrading to 8.5. And It just so happends that I'm going to probably be re-setting up my whole infrastructure with different IP's etc.. In any case I've got a list of hostnames, and IP's in an excel spreadsheet, (about 50 hosts, etc.. ) we're going to be adding a bunch. So the real question is how can I easily add all of these hosts, and IP information into EDA. I'd rather not retype the whole list. It's a lot, any ideas? I'd rather just copy and paste the whole list in, or into a csv file or something.

Reply
0 Kudos
solgae
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

I am getting the multiple nic issue as well, and after going thru the install, the connectivity did not work, no matter how hard I tried to fix it. The vswif0 had the correct IP address and all nics were linked to vswitch0, but I was unable to ping the esx server.

Also, in the script builder, I would like to see an option to create a VMkernel port that will be used for iSCSI/NAS connection, not just for VMotion. I can, of course, set it up manually using "esxcfg-vmknic -a -i (ip address) -n (netmask) (port group name)", but it would be nice to have that option. I might also add in that I believe the "Add iSCSI target" option is based on ESX 3.0, not 3.5 - the software iSCSI HBA is named vmhba32 in 3.5 instead of vmhba40.

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

if it's the same ESX version you're trying to install it would be very weird if eth0 doesn't work for you anymore. you could try to use eth1 or 2 as ksdevice if there's been a kernel update (which could theoretically change the order at which it would detect PCI devices).

It sounds like a network problem but something has to have changed. perhaps the EDA isn't in the right vlan?

Reply
0 Kudos
brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

bulk import has been on my wishlist but i've also been toying with the idea to enter ranges instead of specific hosts. for the current version that's not possible though.

but there is a shortcut to enter a lot of hosts in a very short time. just edit an existing one, change the hostname and ip addresses (only need to change the last digit) and hit save. it will save the entry as a new server if the hostname is different. that should allow you to enter a couple of dozen servers in a few minutes.

Reply
0 Kudos