Deployment Solution

Hi all;

Well i'm trying to deploy ESX 4.0 from Altiris server.

i've seen different post talking about that, but none worked for me...

could someone give me some document or tips to do so?

Thanks

Medkorp

Hi Medkorp,

I have to start off with some questions :)

• What version of Deployment Solution are you using?
• What kind of hardware do you want to deploy it on?
• Which version of ESX 4.0 do you want to deploy?

In case the HW you want to deploy ESX 4.0 to is HP servers, you could use Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP). the earliest version that supports ESX 4.0 is RDP 3.83 with an add-on. the latest version is 6.0.2.

Hi mlogon,

I use DS 6.9 with SP1

for the moment i'm tring to deploy it on a virtual machine.

but the projet is for HP Server and we need to upgrade our RDP software.

I've seen already documentation for RDP, but no one for DS 6.9 SP1

Thanks for your support!

Medkorp

Hi again Medkorp,

I am not 100% sure, but I don't think you can run an ESX server on a virtual machine. My guess is that you have to use physical HW to run it on.

If I understand you correctly you are allready running RDP, is that correct? If this is the case I would highly reccommend that you upgrade to the latest version. However if you are running RDP 3.xx you should be aware that the file structure will change from using the .\lib structure to a .\hpfeatures structure in the RDP 6.x versions.

When editing the "kickstart files" (which are answer files for the ESX installation) you should be carefull not to use notepad to edit as it will destroy the UNIX formating of the file.

The documentation for you current version of DS should be placed in the \\<SERVERNAME>\eXpress\Docs and the filename should be Deployment.pdf.

I hope this helps you.

Hi mlogon

I already have a full Vmware environment on my pc with vmware workstation 7 (Windows XP SP3 + Intel Q6600 + 4 Go Ram)

1 DC
1 SAN (Openfiler)
2 ESX 4.0
1 Vcenter.

it works really fine i've HA and DRS

By now i trying to setup this ESX with Atiris DS 6.9 but without any success for the moment.

As you told i'll upgrade RDP to the lastest version.

For editing the ks.cfrg file i use notepad++

Thanks for your support!

HI Medkorp,

I am quite surprised that it actually is posible to run an ESX server on a virtual machine :D

Well as long as it is posible to do that I would guess that it is also posible to script the installation from DS.

So what does you ESX deployment job look like, where does it stop and what happens?

Since you allready have an RDP version running you might also have some jobs to deploy ESX 3.x htat you could use as "templates" to see what they do when deploying ESX. Of course since you are deploying to a virtual machine you will have to skip the HW parts of the jobs ;)

Hi mlogan,

Well if you want to setup the same environment you can use this website: http://xtravirt.com/ 

there"s a lot of excellent withepaper for Citrix XenServer, Vmware...

How to Install VMware ESX 4.0 on Workstation 6.5.2 as a VM

How to Configure Openfiler iSCSI Storage for VMware ESX 4

E-book: Deploy ESX4 – The Ultimate Guide

By now when i try to start the' Vm, the PXE boot works fine, but i don't know how to configure the grub in order to access to the ftp server.

i'll put some print screen about the trouble today or tomorrow.

Thanks for your support

Medkorp

Here is how we deploy ESX on physical HW and i couldn't imagine that it should be any different from a virtual machine.... except for the HW config :)
 

• Configure HW - LinuxPE
• Deploy GRUB image- LinuxPE
• reboot
• Create boot environment (I guess that this is what you need) - LinuxPE
• Configure ESX after it has been installed -ESX booted and ADLagent running

I would highly reccommend that you upgrade you RDP as it will contain all the jobs and scripts needed. Remember that the RDP jobs are to be considered as templates and therefore can be copied and modifyed as you like.