I have a new ESXi server (5.x), and trying to load some VM guests on there. I have the guests configured, but when I try and boot from ISO image, the graphics are so bad it is futile. No worries I normally use kickstart anyways. Because the ESXi (on the same network as my physical servers) cannot talk to the PXE server. But works fine on the network (I can ssh/scp in and out of the ESXi server). i am unable to kickstart from the network. As this is a blade, there is not DVD access. But I have a kickstart file, an iso image on my datastore. Really I have two questions: 1. how do I "test" or troubleshoot WHY ESXi cannot reach the pxe server. The mac addresses/ips/hostnames of the VM guests are in DNS and DHCP. 2. How do I kickstart a VM guest from the datastore kickstart file/iso image? D.
Jay Leafey
2014-Oct-06 16:55 UTC
[CentOS] trying to kickstart a vm guest from my datastore
On 10/06/2014 10:36 AM, Dan Hyatt wrote:> > I have a new ESXi server (5.x), and trying to load some VM guests on there. > I have the guests configured, but when I try and boot from ISO image, > the graphics are so bad it is futile. No worries I normally use > kickstart anyways. > > Because the ESXi (on the same network as my physical servers) cannot > talk to the PXE server. But works fine on the network (I can ssh/scp in > and out of the ESXi server). i am unable to kickstart from the network. > As this is a blade, there is not DVD access. But I have a kickstart > file, an iso image on my datastore. > > Really I have two questions: > 1. how do I "test" or troubleshoot WHY ESXi cannot reach the pxe server. > The mac addresses/ips/hostnames of the VM guests are in DNS and DHCP. > 2. How do I kickstart a VM guest from the datastore kickstart file/iso > image? > > D.I can't say much about (1), but I do kickstart my VM installs all the time. My approach might not work for you, but here goes. I put all my ISO images on an NFS share from my workstation, which I then configure on my EXSi boxes as a datastore. I then put my kickstart files in a directory reachable via http. I configure the VMs using VSphere and power them on. Since I don't have a PXE server configured it pauses there, so I open the console to the VM, point the CD drive to an ISO image on the datastore, and reboot the VM using "send ctrl-alt-del," which then boots from the ISO image. When the boot menu comes, up, I hit tab and append "ks=http://{url to kickstart file}" to the kernel line and continue from there. The installation generally continues without much manual intervention from there, other than the "Initialize Disk?" messages. There's a LOT more manual intervention here than I like, but there are constraints in my environment that will not allow me to stand up a PXE server. I have been able to do this with the VSphere client on Windows (grumble!) and the web GUI via VCenter. YMMV! -- Jay Leafey - jay.leafey at mindless.com Memphis, TN