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VMTN_Admin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ultimate Deployment Appliance

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/232

Deploy your favorite OS by pressing F12, bring your own ISO's, we'll do the rest

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vmkillies
Contributor
Contributor

Can we install version 3.5 using the PXE option ?

Does it support the script for the installation ? i am getting stuck using UDA at script not being able to choose the deployment media.

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Phil_Helmling
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

have you changed the NIC hardware type to e1000 in the vmx file? See xtravirt.com for details.

You will also may need to change the Kickstart Boot Parameters, ksdevice=eth0 value.

Phil

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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Can we install version 3.5 using the PXE option ?

Does it support the script for the installation ? i am getting stuck using UDA at script not being able to choose the deployment media.

Yes, I've been deploying 3.5 with UDA since the Dec distro...

What precisely is the error you are getting???

Regards

Mike

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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vmkillies
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks a lot for writing back Mike!

Somehow its not able to identify the location of the kickstart script.

I did not made any specific change but used the options as guided by Phil Helmling about the site -

Install and run VMware ESX3 on VMware Workstation 6, v1.3, www.xtravirt.com

After that now its picking up the script but getting stuck at copying the image netstg2.img on to the server -

On the screen it says -

Unable to retrieve the install image

When i check on screen with Alt+F3 it says -

*transferring to a fd

It keeps waiting there for ever and ever .

Thanks -

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Phil_Helmling
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You may need to set some other kickstart boot options to stop it from trying to use a floppy disk (fd) eg:

append ip=dhcp ksdevice=eth0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.esx350 network ks=http://192.168.121.128/kickstart/ex01.cfg

I've also seen in your error below that the path is malformed:

"http://10.0.0.104//esx/esx301//"

There are double slashes. I had something similar a while back with some Sun servers and thought it was the driver. Could not get it to work at all, had to resort to cdrom and floppy kickstart config script.

Phil

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vmkillies
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks Phil ..for sharing the idea and thoughts on the same . :smileygrin:

The change made it work was the way to supply the ISO files to the UDA. Earlier i was trying to supply the ISO files from base windows server machine ,which some how was not working fine.

This time I tried initializing the Disk2 and copied over the ISO to Disk2 and it worked like a champ ..!!

Thanks Mike and _dude ( I dont know the name Smiley Happy ) for your help and prompt replies !

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Treborius
Contributor
Contributor

Hello

This from an earlier post in respect to ESXi as a host

To restate the issue, I followed the instruction as laid

out by the ESX UDA edition documentation by Mike Laverick and came up

with a snag since the documentation is ESX and not ESXI. I downloaded

the RCLI appliance from VMware and tried copying the VMDK file through

the command line so as to get it registered in ESXi and i was getting

'internal issues". I verified that my syntax was correct so I am not

sure what mistakes I may have been making in that process.

However, i Did get it to work.

After

creating the VMware machine as laid in the ESX documentation for the

ESX edition and copying the VMDK to the created VMware machine I used

VMware converter to convert the virtual machine into another virtual

machine in the same ESXI host. The new Virtual machine booted fine.

Peace all.

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Michelle_Laveri
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

I've never run UDA on an ESX3i host - I take it you still have Service Console/ESX 3.x.x to install,...

The easiest way to do this would be to extract the UDA tar ball locally.... and then use the datastore browser to upload the files.... then the RCLI version of vmkfstools to convert from the 2gbsparse format to the flat format...

For sometime I have been thinking about us adopting the OVF format for the UDA as this would be a much easier way (for all flavours of ESX) to get the UDA into the host.

Just not got round to it yet. THought it might be an idea to do when Vi4 is released....

Regards

Mike

Regards
Michelle Laverick
@m_laverick
http://www.michellelaverick.com
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surfup
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Phil,

I just started using the UDA to deploy ESX for IBM blade-servers and wonder that I can have more than one kickstart scripts - like esx01.cfg, esx02.cfg, etc.? I saw your posted and wonder where I edit the line below:

"append ip=dhcp ksdevice=eth0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.esx350 network ks=http://192.168.121.128/kickstart/ex01.cfg"

Cheers,

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dinny
Expert
Expert

Hiya,

You can have more than one cfg file with UDA.

You can create them in the gui admin app - templates, create new template.

Within the template the contents of the command line that you list equates to the "boot parameters" part of the template, the cfg file forms the other part of the template.

Dinny

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surfup
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thanks Dinny.

So, basically, I can create as many as .cfg files from the GUI. Then, when bootup the new server to install ESX I just reference the "esx01", "esx02", etc.

Cheers,

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dinny
Expert
Expert

That's right...

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fahdp
Contributor
Contributor

I am also getting the //esx/esx301 and hence it wont download the image. If i use a browser and try the adress without the // i.e only /esx/esx301 i can download image.

How can i change it so that UDA tries the correct address?

Im not too ks savvy or linux savvy so plz bear with me.

thanks

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surfup
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have another question ... have anyone try to deploy ESX to multiple servers concurrently? Is this option support?

Since, I tried to deploy ESX to 2 DL380 servers one after another and used different Kickstart scripts. While the first server boot up with PXE, get an IP from UDA and I can select the template to customized the installation, etc. just fine. I start up the the second DL380 server, at first the PXE could not connect to the UDA to get the IP address; after the second tried it connected to the UDA for IP. After it go through the process, it stop at the TCP/IP configuration screen and prompt for enter the IP settings? Not sure why? Have anyone seen this?

Also, during the initial installation process, the screen show these two steps that I am not familiar with and it's probably before it read "my" kickstart script:

1. "Dynamic IP" --> Sending request for IP information for eth0 ... ( I had hardcode the IP for eth0 in my kickstart script)

2. "Host Name" --> Determine host name and domain name ... (not sure what is this

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surfup
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You might want to check the path in your kickstart "template". You can access it from the web interface under "Templates" tab. The path in your kickstart script should be "url --url http://<UDA IP Address/esx/esx301/" There should be a "/" at the end of the url.

Also, use WINSCP to connect to UDA server and make sure you have a "esx301" directory under /var/public/www/esx/esx301 - and there are files and directories been imported from the ESX*.iso image.

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fahdp
Contributor
Contributor

You might want to check the path in your kickstart "template". You can access it from the web interface under "Templates" tab. The path in your kickstart script should be "url --url <UDA IP Address/esx/esx301/" There should be a "/" at the end of the url.

Also, use WINSCP to connect to UDA server and make sure you have a "esx301" directory under /var/public/www/esx/esx301 - and there are files and directories been imported from the ESX*.iso image.

I have checked it from the web interface under templates and it seems fine ....

The ESX directory also exists as suggested under /var/public/www/esx/esx301 and files and folders are OK.

Suggestions??

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ssahadev2
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've a template for ESX 3.x and the server gets ip from the UDA1.4. Since there are multiple servers to be installed using the same templates the hostname would also be same on all the installation server. Is there a way by which i can provide different Hostnames for each installation along with boot image.

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dinny
Expert
Expert

Hiya,

As posted a few days ago - the easiest way to do that is just to have a different template per host.

Dinny

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brugh
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

to address exactly these kinds of issues, i built the EDA. it's built dedicatedly to deploy ESX servers and because of that, does that extremely well.

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surfup
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Dinny,

I have created 3 templates and try to install ESX 3.5 UP2 on 2 DL380 G3 servers. For some reasons, I can fired up the first DL380 and it got the IP address from the PXE UDA server and run the installation just fine.

But, when I fired up the second DL380 server, it went through the PXE boot process to obtain an IP address, I select a diffetrent template, it go through the process and there are two steps that I am not familiar with and it's probably before it read "my" kickstart script:

1. "Dynamic IP" --> Sending request for IP information for eth0 ... ( I had hardcode the IP for eth0 in my kickstart script)

2. "Host Name" --> Determine host name and domain name ... (not sure what is this meant)

Anyway, after the above steps it "prompt" to enter the IP address? Not sure why it doing that? If I let the first ESX server completed then start the second one it works.

Also, for the "ip=" boot parameter - see below. What's a syntax for it - I have searched and could not come up with anything. Can I enter the IP address here - like "192.168.33.100" ? And do I need to specify the subnet mask, default gateway as well?

append ip=dhcp ksdevice=eth0 load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.esx350 network ks=http://192.168.121.128/kickstart/exs01.cfg

Cheers,

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