Yes, your going to need xCAT. We've have found that ESXi needs to be installed via kickstart type method using xcat.
Partimage - which is the tool used underneath xCAT layer doesn't support the ESXi filesystem. xCAT can deploy using either kickstart or partimage method for x86 hardware. We are using xCAT to deploy our bare-metal environments; user created, kickstart based environments, and for our hypervisor environments ESXi, and for the next release kvm. xCAT is a very nice tool when you have more than a couple of blades to install or repurpose for other features supported by VCL. At first I would suggest to get xCAT working at the command line before trying to use xCAT through the VCL interface. VCL xCAT provisioning modules are only making xCAT system calls to install a node. Once xCAT is setup correctly and working, then start using it through the VCL interface. When you get ready we can share our esxi kickstart template to compare, so you can built one for your environment. Aaron On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 7:25 PM, Anu Chirinos <a...@fiu.edu> wrote: > What about if we want to have ESXi as an image that can be deployed on number > of identical servers? Will that require xcat underneath, or can we just > capture the base esxi as image and then deploy it. If so, are there anything > specific before capturing that image? > > > Anu Chirinos > University Technology Services > Office: 305-348-0275, Cell 786-712-9025 > > ________________________________________ > From: Aaron Peeler [fapee...@ncsu.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 9:27 AM > To: vcl-user@incubator.apache.org > Subject: Re: Virtualizing the Virtualization Server > > Yes. This requires xCAT http://xcat.sourceforge.net/ xCAT is fairly > straight forward and well supported for the IBM bladeCenter hardware, > but has worked with other hardware also. The xCAT developers are > mostly IBMers - hardware group. > > > Some xCAT pre-install steps. > 1) Make to include the private IP addresses of your blades or phyiscal > machines in the management nodes /etc/hosts file > 2) make a copy of your existing dhcpd.conf file > > The xcat starting point documentation is: > http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/xcat/index.php?title=Setting_Up_a_Linux_xCAT_Mgmt_Node > > Once xcat is installed you will need to follow these steps to add > support for partimage, this is the component that does the imaging. > https://cwiki.apache.org/VCL/adding-support-for-partimage-and-partimage-ng-to-xcat-2x-unofficial.html > > Aaron > > On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 8:55 AM, Evelio Quiros <evq...@fiu.edu> wrote: >> Hello, >> First, thanks for all the helpful advice. We were able to get up and going >> thanks to you all. >> Is it possible to capture the image of the Vmware server itself, and then >> replicate it to other bare metal server? >> Is there some documentation on that procedure? >> Thanks Again, >> Al Quiros > > > > -- > Aaron Peeler > Program Manager > Virtual Computing Lab > NC State University > > All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which > are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public > Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. > -- Aaron Peeler Program Manager Virtual Computing Lab NC State University All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.
