VMware ESXi unattended installation AKA kickstart or KS script.

Again a post related to VCP curriculum.

I know most of the cases we are not looking at these unattended options because ESXi installation is quite simple and fast.

But if you are installing large number of hosts this can be handy.

In this case first thing is to prepare the script with all the required settings. Since im doing it in a lab environment here is the sample script that i will be using for this.

+++++++++++++++

 #
 # Sample scripted installation file
 #
 # Accept EULA
 vmaccepteula
 # Set root password
 rootpw password
 #Install on local disk overwriting any existing VMFS datastore
 install --firstdisk --overwritevmfs
 # Network configuration
 network --bootproto=static --device=vmnic0 --ip=20.198.49.236 --netmask=255.255.255.0 --gateway=20.198.49.1 --nameserver=20.198.49.230 --hostname=esxi2.vcp.net --vlanid=100 --addvmportgroup=1
 #Reboot after installation completed
 reboot  

++++++++++++++++

You can find more details about all the available options from vmware website. copy it to a notepad file and save it as ks.cfg. Name can be anything as long as it has CFG file extension.

Once you are done with the script. you will need to boot from the CD. then press shift + o to execute the script you created.

Once you press shift+o you will notice its shows a prompt with runweasel. delete the runweasel and type
 

ks=http://20.198.49.230/ks/ks.cfg ip=20.198.49.189 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=20.198.49.1

ESXi installer will use those ip parameters to access the http file path. If you are using nested environment please change the port group for the first interface which support specific VLAN. This supports many protocol options such as ftp and nfs. Since i used HTTP for this example it will try to download the configuration from the HTTP server by using HTTP get. 

Here is a extra tip incase if you are trying this on IIS make sure you configure MIME Types to support CFG file extensions. Other wise you will notice ESXi is struggling to download the configuration from IIS server. 

Cheers.