Install ESXi through Foreman using iPXE bootstrapping

This post is intended to simplify the ESXi installation process described in the previous post using the new iPXE bootstrapping feature of Foreman introduced in v1.20.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://theforeman.org/2019/06/install-esxi-through-foreman-using-ipxe-bootstrapping.html

Hi Amardeep,

will it work for PXE boot servers also with the same configuration steps what you have mentioned in the document.

Since I have HPDL360 G6 hardware it supports only Vmware Esxi 5.5 & it doest not support the ipxe bios.

Thanks

In that case please follow the older version where I used normal PXE instead of iPXE.
https://theforeman.org/2018/08/deploying-esxi-through-foreman.html

Thanks Amardeep for your reply.
But suggested doc will work with foreman 1.22 Version.

Yes it will work.

Hi Amardeep,
Thanks for the clarification!!
As of now I am using Auto discovery host to provision is there any impact on those configuration parameter if I enable this?

Thanks
    indent preformatted text by 4 spaces
Hi Amardeep,

In PXELinux template I have make the modification to work with ESXi 5.5 as below,
DEFAULT ESXi
NOHALT 1
LABEL ESXi
KERNEL boot/esxi55u2/mboot.c32
APPEND -c boot/esxi55u2/boot.cfg ks=<%= foreman_url("provision") %>
IPAPPEND 2

Thanks for your help--

Hi @Amardeep_Kahali,

This “How to” is nice and it would be very cool if you could add the last steps for Ubuntu, Centos, …
I know that the topic is VMware focused …

Thanks!!!

@Gueug78400

I’m getting “Unable to locate configuration file” after following these instructions. In the ESXi iPXE Common template (section 3.3.1), shouldn’t there be a space in line:

kernel ftp://<%= foreman_server_fqdn %>/<%= @host.operatingsystem.name %>/${esxi_bootloader}-c

before the “-c”
?
In other words, it should read:
kernel ftp://<%= foreman_server_fqdn %>/<%= @host.operatingsystem.name %>/${esxi_bootloader} -c
?