Comments on: ESX 3.5 Kickstart script – part 3

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:45:48 +0000

I was wondering whether your scripts would work on esx 4.0 I know that VICFG commands are the rage now but where would you use one rather than the other ie esxcfg

Thankyou

By: ESX 3.5 U4 Kickstart for IBM xSeries and QLA4050 « Virtual Andy

ESX 3.5 U4 Kickstart for IBM xSeries and QLA4050 « Virtual Andy — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:20:43 +0000

[...] Thanks to Leo’s ESX 3.5 Kickstart script – part 3. [...]

By: Land of the Lemmings, v2 » Virtualization Projects

Land of the Lemmings, v2 » Virtualization Projects — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:19:57 +0000

[...] ESX node installs are now as close to fully automated as I want to make them, using Leo’s Ramblings as a starting [...]

By: links for 2009-05-23 : JOSHMEANS.COM

links for 2009-05-23 : JOSHMEANS.COM — Sat, 23 May 2009 12:32:13 +0000

[...] ESX 3.5 Kickstart script – part 3 | Leo's Ramblings (tags: esx vmware sysadmin kickstart linux) [...]

By: Leo

Leo — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:15:43 +0000

Hi John,

That basically outputs the install syslog to a a file called fchba.out – happens during installation.

I’ll have to replace the file in the link as it’s a bit clunky, it’s better to use a customized ISO that doesn’t load HBA drivers on boot.

Cheers,
Leo

By: JohnS

JohnS — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:38:35 +0000

Leo,

This is great!! Was going through the text file you linked and I am finding it is different then the one you have explained on the web.

The web has:

## We are going include ignoredisk and disk_map autogenerated files here
%include /tmp/ignoredisk
%include /tmp/disk_map

SYSLOG=./fchba.out
IGNOREDISK=/tmp/ignoredisk
TESTSTATEMENT=$(grep -e QLogic -e Emulex $SYSLOG)

touch $IGNOREDISK
if [ -n "$TESTSTATEMENT" ] ; then
for i in $(grep -e QLogic -e Emulex $SYSLOG | grep scsi | cut -d ” ” -f 1 | sed ‘s///’); do DISKS=$DISKS” “$(grep “$i” $SYSLOG | grep Attach | cut -d ” ” -f 4) ; done
DISKS=$(echo $DISKS|sed ‘s/ s/,s/g’)
echo “ignoredisk –drives=”$DISKS > $IGNOREDISK
fi

The text file has:

# ignoredisk .drives=sdb,sdc,sdd,sde,sdf,sdg,sdh,sdi,sdj,sdk,sdl

## We are going to wipe anything on the first (ccsis/sda) disk here!
%include /tmp/disk_map

I can cut and paste from one to the other fine, just wondering what fchba.out is? Is this something that exists during a kickstart/install and not afterward?

Thanks.

By: Leo

Leo — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:55:25 +0000

Hi Nicola,

No I’m sorry, I’ve never dealt with automated installations on IBM boxes

By: Nicola

Nicola — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:15:24 +0000

I don’t suppose you’ve had any call to install IBM Director in an automated way with any of your kickstart builds have you? I’m just using your kickstart to try and craft something of my own, but we use IBM kit, of which I have had no experience with their manglement tools yet.

Many thanks for sharing all this BTW! Has saved me much time.

By: vishy

vishy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:59:05 +0000

thanks, great info…couple of extra script that I found handy

#########################################
# Change the amount of RAM allocated to the Service Console #
#########################################

cp /etc/vmware/esx.conf /etc/vmware/esx.conf.ORIG
perl -spi -e ‘s|/boot/memSize = \”272\”|/boot/memSize = \”800\”|’ /etc/vmware/esx.conf
cp /etc/grub.conf /etc/grub.conf.ORIG
esxcfg-boot -g
esxcfg-boot -b

###################################
# VMware have this in their security hardening guide #
###################################

cat > /etc/vmware/hostd/authorization.xml << AUTHORIZATION

ha-folder-root
10
false
true
-1
root

ha-folder-root
11
false
true
-1
admin

AUTHORIZATION

################################################
# NFS Advance Configuration setup based on NetApp NFS best practise #
#Can’t get this to work using the kickstart script but when used manually #
#via SC works fine, if someone got it working, let us know #
################################################

/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/advopt/update NFS”.”HeartbeatFrequency int 12
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/advopt/update NFS”.”HeartbeatMaxFailures int 10
/usr/bin/vmware-vim-cmd hostsvc/advopt/update NFS”.”MaxVolumes int 30

By: Leo

Leo — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 02:58:58 +0000

Hi Mike,

I have not, but let me do a little investigation.

Cheers,
Leo