PXE boot setup for ESXi 5 installation

Hardware setup

1. VMware Workstation 8.0.4 with a virtual network bridged to external network.
• The virtual network needs to be bridged and cannot be Host-only or else the PXE boot does not work for the TFTP
2. Virtual Machine with 4 vCPU (2 dual-core processors), 4 GB memory and 60 GB virtual disk running RHEL 6.3 for PXE server
3. Virtual Machine with 2 vCPU (2 single-core processors), 2 GB memory and 40 GB virtual disk for ESXi 5 installation

Software setup

1. syslinux 3.86
• ESXi 5 PXE boot installation only works with syslinux 3.86. syslinux 4.0.6 is not compatible, for example, APPEND -c boot.cfg code cannot be recognized on the PXE configuration file
2. tftp-server 0.49
3. dhcp 4.1.1
4. httpd 2.2.15
5. VMware Workstation 8.0.4

Software installation and configuration of PXE server

1. tftp-server
• yum install tftp-server
• sed -e 's/\(\s\*\)disable\(\s\*\)= yes/\1disable\2= no/' -i /etc/xinetd/tftp
• service xinetd start
• cd /; ln -s /var/lib/tftpboot
2. dhcp
• yum install dhcp
• cd /etc/dhcp
• cp -rp dhcpd.conf dhcpd.conf.`date +%Y%m%d`
• Update dhcpd.conf as shown on dhcpd.conf in references section
• cd /etc/sysconfig
• cp -rp dhcpd dhcpd.`date +%Y%m%d`
• sed -e 's/DHCPDARGS=$/DHCPDARGS=eth1/' -i dhcpd
• service dhcpd start 
3. syslinux
• yum install perl-Crypt-PasswdMD5-1.3-6.el6.noarch -y
• yum install perl-Digest-SHA1-2.12-2.el6.x86_64 -y
• wget ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/linux/scientificlinux/6.0/x86_64/os/Packages/syslinux-3.86-1.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• rpm -ivh syslinux-3.86-1.1.el6.x86_64.rpm
• cp -p /usr/share/syslinux/pxelinux.0 /var/lib/tftpboot
• mkdir -p /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg
• Put the PXE configuration file as 01-mac_address_of_target_ESXi_host under the directory /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg.  Sample is shown in references section.
• Note: The MAC address has to be in lower case hexadecimal characters
4. httpd
• httpd is installed by default on RHEL6 and so no need to install the package
• chkconfig httpd on; service httpd on
• cd /var/www/html ; mkdir -p /var/www/html/esx5i_ksFiles
• Update ks.cfg as shown on ks.cfg in references section
5. Firewall
•  Run system-config-firewall-tui to enable rule to allow tftp and http incoming traffic
6. ESXi 5 image repository
• On the PXE server VM, connect the CDROM to the ESXi 5 ISO image
• mount /dev/sr0 /mnt
• cd /mnt
• tar cvf - . | (cd /tftpboot; tar xvf -)
• Update /tftpboot/boot.cfg to indicate the location of the kickstart configuration file ks.cfg as follows.
• sed -e 's/\(kernelopt=runweasel\)/\1 ks=http:\/\/192.168.88.1\/esx5i_ksFiles\/ks.cfg/' -i boot.cfg

Next steps

1. Customize the kickstart configuration file ks.cfg for post installation setup.
2. Implementation of ESXi 5 auto deploy feature

References

• dhcpd.conf
• option domain-name "wolfliar.local";
• option domain-name-servers dc1.wolfliar.local;
• default-lease-time 600;
• max-lease-time 7200;
• ddns-update-style none;
• allow booting;
• allow bootp;
• authoritative;
• log-facility local7;
• class "pxeclients" {
•   match if substring (option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9) = "PXEClient";
•   next-server 192.168.88.1;
•   filename "pxelinux.0";
• }
• subnet 192.168.88.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
•   range 192.168.88.100 192.168.88.149;
• }

• 01-mac_address_of_target_ESXi_host
• DEFAULT menu.c32 
• NOHALT 1
• PROMPT 0
• TIMEOUT 80
• LABEL install
•   KERNEL mboot.c32
•   APPEND -c boot.cfg
•   MENU LABEL ESXi-5.0.0-469512-standard ^Installer
• LABEL hddboot
•   LOCALBOOT 0x80
•   MENU LABEL ^Boot from local disk
•  
• MENU TITLE ESXi-5.0.0-469512-standard Boot Menu

• ks.cfg
• #
• # Sample scripted installation file
• #
• # Accept the VMware End User License Agreement
• vmaccepteula
•  
• # Set the root password for the DCUI and Tech Support Mode
• rootpw mypassword
•  
• # Install on the first local disk available on machine
• install --firstdisk --overwritevmfs
•  
• # Set the network to DHCP on the first network adapter
• network --bootproto=dhcp --device=vmnic0
•  
• # A sample post-install script
• %post --interpreter=python --ignorefailure=true
• import time
• stampFile = open('/finished.stamp', mode='w')
• stampFile.write( time.asctime() )
•  
• %firstboot --interpreter=busybox
• # Remove the uplink to the PXE boot environment from the 
• primary vSwitch
• esxcfg-vswitch -U vmnic4 vSwitch0