[CentOS] trying to kickstart a vm guest from my datastore
Jay Leafey
jay.leafey at mindless.com
Mon Oct 6 16:55:14 UTC 2014
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
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