Anyone have any experience working with VMWare ESXi 4.x?

Support
1

I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, Brian

2

What are you trying to do? The API and CLI commands along with virtual center are what you would use to manage it.

Corey

··· On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:

I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, Brian

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3

We haven't done any automation to date. We have 3 production ESXi 4
servers that are managed by virtual center, and one standalone ESXi 4
box that we use for testing.

We were hoping to get a better understanding of the Foreman
provisioning workflow by letting Foreman manage our ESXi testing box.

My understanding was this was supported, but I can't find any documentation.

Thanks,
Brian

··· On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 10:42 PM, Corey Osman wrote: > What are you trying to do? The API and CLI commands along with virtual center are what you would use to manage it. > > > Corey > On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote: > >> I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, Brian >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. >> To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. >> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users?hl=en. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Foreman users" group. > To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users?hl=en. > >
4

ESX is redhat based and uses kickstarts to automate deployment. I am not sure about ESXi. Moreover, ESX will be going away in the future while ESXi is the new standard to compete with other hypervisors.

Corey

··· On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:

I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, Brian

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5

Foreman supports libvirt based hypervisors… I'm guessing that adding
vmware should not be that hard… just out of curiosity, anyone else
would like to see support for the non open source virtualization
solution within foreman?

which features would be the most important for you?

Ohad

··· On Tue, 2011-05-31 at 22:59 -0400, Brian Gupta wrote: > We were hoping to get a better understanding of the Foreman > provisioning workflow by letting Foreman manage our ESXi testing box. > > My understanding was this was supported, but I can't find any > documentation. >
6

VMware ESXi also supports (a subset) of Kickstart, see ESXi Installable and
vCenter Server Setup Guide1 and Setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 Scripted
Installation[2].

installable/setup_guide/c_location_esx_media.html#1_14_9_1
[2]: http://virtualkenneth.com/2010/07/21/setting-up-vsphere-esxi-4-1-
scripted-installation/

Regards
Jochen

··· Am Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2011, 18:37:27 schrieb Corey Osman: > ESX is redhat based and uses kickstarts to automate deployment. I am not > sure about ESXi. Moreover, ESX will be going away in the future while > ESXi is the new standard to compete with other hypervisors. > > > Corey > > On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote: > > I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, > > Brian
7

> Foreman supports libvirt based hypervisors… I'm guessing that adding
vmware should not be that hard… just out of curiosity,
> anyone else would like to see support for the non open source
virtualization solution within foreman?

"Official" VMWare and EC2 provisioning support would be awesome

> which features would be the most important for you?

Choosing: cluster, datastore, Guest OS, N.Processors, Memory, NICs/network,
disks (size, thin-provisioning…)

Btw, does anyone else also need to provision Windows machines ? I was
starting to check the possibilities of Windows deployment services.
In theory I think we could let Foreman-proxy manage the same DHCP server as
WDS uses… (Ping me if you want to exchange some ideas about it.)

Cheers,
Marcello

On Behalf Of Ohad Levy

··· -----Original Message----- From: foreman-users@googlegroups.com [mailto:foreman-users@googlegroups.com] Sent: woensdag 1 juni 2011 7:03 To: foreman-users@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [foreman-users] Anyone have any experience working with VMWare ESXi 4.x?

On Tue, 2011-05-31 at 22:59 -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:

We were hoping to get a better understanding of the Foreman
provisioning workflow by letting Foreman manage our ESXi testing box.

My understanding was this was supported, but I can’t find any
documentation.

Foreman supports libvirt based hypervisors… I’m guessing that adding vmware
should not be that hard… just out of curiosity, anyone else would like to
see support for the non open source virtualization solution within foreman?

which features would be the most important for you?

Ohad

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8

Hello!

I would love to see the ESX driver supported in Foreman, despite on Debian it is necessary to rebuild the package to enable the driver. I think I could provide instructions on how to do that if there is interest :slight_smile:

Cheers
Hannes

··· -- Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android-Mobiltelefon mit K-9 Mail gesendet.

Ohad Levy ohadlevy@gmail.com schrieb:

On Tue, 2011-05-31 at 22:59 -0400, Brian Gupta wrote:

We were hoping to get a better understanding of the Foreman
provisioning workflow by letting Foreman manage our ESXi testing box.

My understanding was this was supported, but I can’t find any
documentation.

Foreman supports libvirt based hypervisors… I’m guessing that adding
vmware should not be that hard… just out of curiosity, anyone else
would like to see support for the non open source virtualization
solution within foreman?

which features would be the most important for you?

Ohad

–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “Foreman users” group.
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9

I think there are two different topics here:

  1. deploy a new vmware server using foreman
  2. deploy a new server using vmware virtualization services.

at the moment, I was mostly referring to 2.

While its possible to use libvirt in order to talk with a vmware host, i
think it makes more sense to talk to a cloud provider (such as vsphere),
which would allow us to deploy it somewhere on a collection of vmware hosts
instead of just a specific machine.

this work is also required towards support ec2 and other cloud providers out
of the box within foreman.

Ohad

··· On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Jochen Schalanda wrote:

VMware ESXi also supports (a subset) of Kickstart, see ESXi Installable and
vCenter Server Setup Guide1 and Setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 Scripted
Installation[2].

installable/setup_guide/c_location_esx_media.html#1_14_9_1
[2]: http://virtualkenneth.com/2010/07/21/setting-up-vsphere-esxi-4-1-
scripted-installation/

Regards
Jochen

Am Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2011, 18:37:27 schrieb Corey Osman:

ESX is redhat based and uses kickstarts to automate deployment. I am not
sure about ESXi. Moreover, ESX will be going away in the future while
ESXi is the new standard to compete with other hypervisors.

Corey

On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:

I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks,
Brian

–
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10

I like Marcello's idea of deploying any OS server through Foreman.
That would go a long way towards ridding our environment of an
ancient, homegrown tool that I detest.

Ohad, #2 would certainly be the more important of the two for us, as
most of our builds now happen on vCenter or standalone ESXi. I have
yet to play with libvirt as a method of controlling ESX/i/vSphere, and
have no idea how it compares with VMWare's "official tools".

Keep up the good work - we recently deployed foreman and are loving it
so far.

Greg

··· On Jun 2, 8:17 am, Ohad Levy wrote: > I think there are two different topics here: > > 1. deploy a new vmware server using foreman > 2. deploy a new server using vmware virtualization services. > > at the moment, I was mostly referring to 2. > > While its possible to use libvirt in order to talk with a vmware host, i > think it makes more sense to talk to a cloud provider (such as vsphere), > which would allow us to deploy it somewhere on a collection of vmware hosts > instead of just a specific machine. > > this work is also required towards support ec2 and other cloud providers out > of the box within foreman. > > Ohad > > On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Jochen Schalanda wrote: > > > > > > > > > VMware ESXi also supports (a subset) of Kickstart, see ESXi Installable and > > vCenter Server Setup Guide[1] and Setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 Scripted > > Installation[2]. > > > [1]:http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-esxi-4-1- > > installable/setup_guide/c_location_esx_media.html#1_14_9_1 > > [2]:http://virtualkenneth.com/2010/07/21/setting-up-vsphere-esxi-4-1- > > scripted-installation/ > > > Regards > > Jochen > > > Am Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2011, 18:37:27 schrieb Corey Osman: > > > ESX is redhat based and uses kickstarts to automate deployment. I am not > > > sure about ESXi. Moreover, ESX will be going away in the future while > > > ESXi is the new standard to compete with other hypervisors. > > > > Corey > > > > On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote: > > > > I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find. Thanks, > > > > Brian > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Foreman users" group. > > To post to this group, send email to foreman-users@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > foreman-users+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/foreman-users?hl=en.
11

> I like Marcello's idea of deploying any OS server through Foreman.
> That would go a long way towards ridding our environment of an
> ancient, homegrown tool that I detest.
>
> Ohad, #2 would certainly be the more important of the two for us, as
> most of our builds now happen on vCenter or standalone ESXi. I have
> yet to play with libvirt as a method of controlling ESX/i/vSphere, and
> have no idea how it compares with VMWare's "official tools".
>
I think that using libvirt to manipulate vmware vsphere is not a good way
forward, the main reason is that libvirt can only talk to hypervisors (in
this case esx/i) and we would like to allow more broad configuration (such
as dc/clusters/ etc etc).

> Keep up the good work - we recently deployed foreman and are loving it
> so far.
>
Thanks, always nice to hear, with open source you never know who is actually
using your products :slight_smile:

Ohad

··· On Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 4:15 PM, Greg Etling wrote:

Greg

On Jun 2, 8:17 am, Ohad Levy ohadl...@gmail.com wrote:

I think there are two different topics here:

  1. deploy a new vmware server using foreman
  2. deploy a new server using vmware virtualization services.

at the moment, I was mostly referring to 2.

While its possible to use libvirt in order to talk with a vmware host, i
think it makes more sense to talk to a cloud provider (such as vsphere),
which would allow us to deploy it somewhere on a collection of vmware
hosts
instead of just a specific machine.

this work is also required towards support ec2 and other cloud providers
out
of the box within foreman.

Ohad

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Jochen Schalanda <joc...@schalanda.name > >wrote:

VMware ESXi also supports (a subset) of Kickstart, see ESXi Installable
and

vCenter Server Setup Guide1 and Setting up vSphere ESXi 4.1 Scripted
Installation[2].

installable/setup_guide/c_location_esx_media.html#1_14_9_1
[2]:http://virtualkenneth.com/2010/07/21/setting-up-vsphere-esxi-4-1-
scripted-installation/

Regards
Jochen

Am Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2011, 18:37:27 schrieb Corey Osman:

ESX is redhat based and uses kickstarts to automate deployment. I am
not

sure about ESXi. Moreover, ESX will be going away in the future
while

ESXi is the new standard to compete with other hypervisors.

Corey

On May 31, 2011, at 7:11 PM, Brian Gupta wrote:

I am trying to find documentation, and it seems hard to find.
Thanks,

Brian

–
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups

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