ESX 3.5 U3 Scripted Install Improvement

November 7, 2008 by Leave a Comment

For those of us that prefer to script our installs instead of creating hand crafted environments, you’ll be thrilled to see that VMware has addressed a pretty annoying bug that has existed in 3.5 regarding vSwitch creation. No more jumping through hoops to make vmnics active. From the release notes :

Network adapters lose bonding during scripted installation
The esxcfg-vswitch -L command now works as expected and with the same functionality as in 3.0.x.

During a scripted installation, the following two commands did not result in a bonded pair of active network adapters on virtual switch VS_VM1. Instead, vmnic3 became the active adapter and vmnic4 became the standby adapter.
esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic3 VS_VM1
esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic4 VS_VM1

Filed Under: Commands, Scripts and Utiliites, Tools, VMware Tagged With: , , ,

Using Sysprep to Customize a 2003 SP2 Template on VirtualCenter 2.5

January 22, 2008 by 2 Comments

It isn’t documented all that well in the VC 2.5 Administration Guide, but it is possible to customize a 2003 SP2 template with minimal effort.

  1. Download and install the 2003 SP2 Sysprep hotfix : KB Article ID 926028. I did this on my VC 2.5 server.
  2. Extract c:\windows\system32\deploy.cab to C:\<ALLUSERSPROFILE>\Application Data\Vmware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\svr2003\
  3. You should now have the option within VirtualCenter to customize a 2003 SP2 template.

This worked for me. I’m going to give it a try in another environment to ensure it wasn’t a fluke.

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: , , , ,