OSIM OS Images for VMWare

Support for VMware ESXi

Creating an OS Image

You can use two different methods to create an OS image for VMware ESX on the Image Prepare System and installed from a boot server.

Copy the VMware ESXI DVD(CD) manually into an NFS share.
The created OS image for VMware ESXi contains only files that are required to start the Linux boot kernel and to control the OS installation process.
Use the VMware ESXi software packages that are embedded inside the OS image.
The OS image contains the entire DVD(CD) contents.

You can create an OS image on the Image Prepare System either with a command-line utility from a command prompt window or by using the DSM Explorer.

Create OS Image Command:

This command requires the type (-o option) and the name (-i option) of the OS image to be created. The new introduced types for VMware ESXi are:

createosimage -o VMWARE-ESXi41 -i esxi41

Boot Server

A boot server hosting an OS image of VMware ESX must have activated the NFS service. On a Windows boot server, install the Microsoft Windows Services for Unix and start the Server for NFS.

Steps and Considerations

Use complex passwords when setting a password for ESX. See VMware password requirements and restrictions.
If you do not use a complex password, then the root password is not correctly set to the desired value and the active value is the string default. The OSIM install log records the failure to set a password, but does not fail the job as a whole.
Installation on Cisco UCS Systems and other systems with multiple disks. The default OSIM ESX installation deletes all partitions from the first detected hard disk only. If the target hardware contains two or more disks and the ESX installation detects that any VMFS partitions are present, then the installation aborts. This behavior by the installer ensures that any virtual machines are not destroyed.
If it is required to provision ESX servers that already have existing VMFS partitions on non-primary disks, then modify the kickstart file such as ks.cfg, to add the overwitevmfs switch to the clearpart command, as follows:
```
clearpart --overwritevmfs --firstdisk
```
The ESXi host hypervisor environment does not support installation and/or operation of the native DSM agents. Use the AM RVI module for discovery of ESXi instances. Installation of a native DSM agent is supported on a guest running as ESXI virtual machines, dependent on the installed operating system and version.

OS Installation Verification, Logging, and Troubleshooting

For information about verifying the OS deployment, see the Verify the OS Deployment. For information about OS installation logging and troubleshooting, see the Logging and Troubleshooting.