[Announcement] ESXi-Customizer v2 supports ESXi 5.0!

[peetz]

ESXi-Customizer is a Windows-only script for customizing the ESXi installation CD with community-developed drivers that are available in OEM.tgz format. With the release of ESXi 5.0 I made available version 2.0 of ESXi-Customizer that also supports ESXi 5.0 (besides ESXi 4.1)!

For technical background information please read my blog post about "The anatomy of the ESXi 5.0 installation CD - and  how to customize it".

Download ESXi-Customizer from the project page!

Update (2011-08-28): Before trying to customize ESXi 5.0 with ESXi-Customizer please be sure to read at least this post with FAQs!

Andreas

- VMware Front Experience Blog

[peetz]

Update (2011-09-29): I released version 2.5 of the ESXi-Customizer script today. It adds support for adding VIB-files and Offline-Bundles to an ESXi 5.0 installation media.

For information about these formats see my blog post VIB files, Offline-Bundles and ESXi-Customizer 2.5.

Please note that there is also an officially supported (but - so far - not well documented) way to add VIB-files and Offline-Bundles to ESXi 5.0. It uses the Powershell based VMware PowerCLI with the ImageBuilder snap-in. My script is - of course - unsupported by VMware, but much simpler to use ...

- Andreas

[peetz]

Update (2011-11-18): I published version 2.6 of the ESXi-Customizer script yesterday.

What's new:

• added option to create (U)EFI-bootable ISO for ESXi 5.0
• added developer tool script TGZ2VIB5.cmd to convert an OEM.tgz-style ESXi 5.0 driver package into VIB format

I'd like to encourage the developers of community supported ESXi 5.0 drivers to convert their packages into VIB format (using Tgz2Vib5) before publishing them! Read more about the advantages of VIB files in this blog post!

- Andreas

[peetz]

Update (2012-02-21): Just published version 2.7 of ESXi-Customizer

What's new:

• moved TGZ2VIB5.cmd tool to the new ESXi5 Community Packaging Tools
• replaced the Advanced Edit feature with more flexible choices for TGZ repacking
• when adding an Offline bundle zip file have addition of each contained VIB file confirmed

- Andreas

[continuum]

Hi Andreas
I never used your tool myself but I hear from others that have used it.

As you dont get feedback from other users ... here is at least one "thanks for sharing your work"

Ulli

[peetz]

Thanks Ulli, I know that there are a lot of happy users out there and some of them give really enthusiastic feedback

But the most I will hear from people that have a problem or need help with using the tool.

Well, that's just normal, isn't it?!