Scripted install overwrite FC SAN LUN

[acpzehetal]

According to an incident I was the one to take the blame of i want to start a discussion about an issue of scripted installation.

We have used a a kickstart script to do a broad configuration of our ESXI 5.x several times. This time i was adapting a the kickstart script for a ESXi 5.1 U1 (HP Customized) and i forgot to deactivate the FC connection from the blade server. In the following the installation overwrote a DATA vmfs LUN and i had to restore several running VM´s  with a lot of discussions afterwards.

Therefore i want to ask the community if someone really smart guy has dealt with this issue before to keep the silly installation people (myself) to overwrite FC SAn luns without shutdown the FC connections?

I have added a sample ks.cfg to give you an outline what we are installing.

I would really appreciate if someone can give me advice.

[jdptechnc · Accepted solution]

On my blades, when use kickstart, I use the install --firstdisk option to force th einstaller to use the local disk by specifying the driver of the internal disk controller.  Obviously this does not work when you use boot from SAN, but if you are installing to local disk, this should work.

Example:

install --firstdisk mptsas

You can also add the --preservevmfs switch if you are super paranoid, but if the local disk has a VMFS, your scripted install will probably error out.

Another thing that I do is use the Image Builder CLI to create a custom image that has the FC HBA drivers removed, so the installer can't possibly access the FC LUNs.  After ESXi is installed, during the firstboot section of the kickstart script, I install the HBA driver.  Again, if you are booting to SAN, this won't help.

Example:

# FirstBoot Script

%firstboot --interpreter=busybox

#  Enter Maintenance Mode
vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter 

############################################
####### Install/Configure Drivers ##########

## Install QLogic HBA driver for FC-FCoE Adapter
esxcli software vib install -d http://x.x.x.x:8181/Drivers/vib/qla2xxx-934.5.6.0-offline_bundle-887798

[acpzehetal]

I am really thankful for your reply, because i didn´t think of the firstdisk parameter with the controller.

I will have a try on this on a testing deviceand i think it will work as you described