VMware Auto Deploy – Stateless ESXi

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• Interresting.....abit "Citrix Provisioning Server"-ish.....the idear looks cool....i just HAVE to try this out.

  • its so complex.... to manage it. for any reason if your autodeploy server crashes entire VM Infrastructure is GONE... Troubleshooting is nightmare...  

    NEXT CERTIFICATION.....VMWARE  AUTODEPLOY EXPERT ... (VAE)

• Hi Simon,
  I'm a bit confused here.
  "What I didn't know and it didn't mention on the labs site was that the ESXi install was Stateless. The ESXi install is only held in memory. So if you reboot the server you'd see a "No Operating System Found" message."
  The install should still be to a local disk (or USB key or SAN LUN). Normally it will run in memory, but syncs configuration changes back to the disk on a regular basis (every 60 seconds I think). This is why, it is possible to some settings if the server reboots shortly after you make a configuration change.
  However if you reboot the server it should still boot up.
  Now when you configure it as stateless, that just means the state (i.e. configuration) isn't stored locally, but applied through Host Profiles (or some other method). It should still have the base OS installed.
  Or am I confused and missing something (wouldn't be the first time ;))
  Cheers, Forbes.

• Hi Forbes,

  I've extensively tested this out and I can assure you that nothing is written to disk. I've asked questions about this to the developers who verified my foundings. It's real stateless and disappears after a reboot.

  Cheers,
  
  Kenneth van Ditmarsch
  
  VMware PSO

• Maybe I'm missing something here, but I didn't see any host profile attached nor is it adding to vCenter as it is advertised. Also, it is building using a name that is used elsewhere in my environment, so not sure (nor can I figure out) where it is getting this name from, since there is no scripting being done.

  Any thoughts or suggestions here??

  M

• a problem I had was that after the ESXi picks up a DHCP address, it's added to vCenter, then host profiles starts doing it's thing and I have a different IP address I want for my ESXi server. So once the profile starts getting attached, the management interface IP is changed then drops connection from vCenter, and the configuration never completes. just my $.02

  http://kendrickcoleman.com/index.php?/Tech-Blog/using-vmware-autodeploy-for-esxi.html

• Take a look at xCAT - This is made for this kind of stuff

• 5 mins and into VC very nice

  Dec 3 11:52:02 buildserver deploy-cli: addhost -- {'profile': 'VC-TEST', 'assettag': 'VHTEST', 'status': 'NEW', 'bootmac': '00:50:56:9B:00:16', 'last_booted': None}
  Dec 3 11:52:36 buildserver deploy-cgi[2294]: host boot -- (5, '00:50:56:9B:00:16', None, 'VHTEST', 'VC-TEST', None, 'NEW', '2010-12-03 16:52:02')
  Dec 3 11:54:45 buildserver deploy-cli: starting escort of host 1 (VHTEST) -- host(5, '00:50:56:9B:00:16', '%VMHOSTIP%', 'VHTEST', 'VC-TEST', '2010-12-03 16:52:36', 'BOOTING', '2010-12-03 16:52:02'), boot-profile('VC-TEST', '172.19.10.10', '', 'b.z,k.z,s.z,c.z,oem.tgz,m.z', 'no-auto-partition', '', '/DC1', '')
  Dec 3 11:54:45 buildserver deploy-cli: waiting 1 more seconds for hostd to spin up on VHTEST
  Dec 3 11:54:46 buildserver deploy-cli: waiting 2 more seconds for hostd to spin up on VHTEST
  Dec 3 11:54:50 buildserver deploy-cli: waiting 4 more seconds for hostd to spin up on VHTEST
  Dec 3 11:54:55 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to HOSTD_UP
  Dec 3 11:54:55 buildserver deploy-cli: escorting host 1 to vCenter %VCENTERIP%
  Dec 3 11:54:55 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to VC_SETUP
  Dec 3 11:55:42 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to ENTER_MAINT_MODE
  Dec 3 11:55:44 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to IN_MAINT_MODE
  Dec 3 11:55:44 buildserver deploy-cli: adding host 1 to folder /DC1
  Dec 3 11:55:44 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to ADDING_TO_VC
  Dec 3 11:56:58 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to ADDED_TO_VC
  Dec 3 11:57:02 buildserver deploy-cli: no host profiles found for host 1
  Dec 3 11:57:03 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to REREGISTERING_VMS
  Dec 3 11:57:05 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to REREGISTERED_VMS
  Dec 3 11:57:06 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to EXIT_MAINT_MODE
  Dec 3 11:57:11 buildserver deploy-cli: changing status of host 1 (VHTEST) to UP

• Great article.