How to install ESXi via serial port (no video card)

[mslass]

Is it possible to install ESXi 4.0 on a machine with no video card, by redirecting the setup dialogs to the serial port? I'm able to see the first choice (install/boot from local) on my serial port, and then some of the kernel load messages, but I never get to the dialogs for root password, network config, etc.

Do I need to add kernel options to the syslinux.cfg file? What would they be? If it's already putting output to the serial port, does it change baud/parity/stop between bootloader and kernel? If so, what does it change them to?

Thanks.

[AndreTheGiant]

As I know ESXi does not handle serial port... so you can only hope that your motherboard can do serial redirection.

Or you can try to do a boot PXE: http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2008/11/howto-pxe-boot-esxi.html

Andre

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Communities forums. I haven't seen anything to suggest it is possible. You'll find the vmkernel options here and the best you get is debug info to serial - http://www.vm-help.com/esx40i/vmkernel_boot_options.php.




Dave

VMware Communities User Moderator

New book in town - vSphere Quick Start Guide -http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/08/12/new-book-in-town-vsphere-quick-start-guide/.

Do you have a system or PCI card working with VMDirectPath? Submit your specs to the Unofficial VMDirectPath HCL - http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=21.

[J1mbo]

Some older Proliants would provide a text-mode console through serial, not sure if that's still supported. Some kind of lights-out management card would obviously help.

Please award points to any useful answer.

[Jinto Antony]

Which server hardware you are using? Goto BIOS and enable console redirection to serial port. You can set the speed and other settings in the BIOS if your server supports it.

Signature: If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanx!

[mslass]

I have already set up console redirection in the BIOS; that's how I'm getting the initial messages from the bootloader, as I described in my initial post. The problem is that once the kernel loads and the VMWare installer starts, I don't get anything else -- presumably because the installer is trying to push the output to the VGA card that isn't there.

The linux kernel has an option console=ttyS0 that will tell it to send kernel messages to the serial port. I'm wondering if VMWare has that option.

If not, I could live with specifiying all the options in the boot configuration file (rootpass, IP info, install disk, etc) so that it wouldn't ask me any questions, just install to the one disk, and start up the management server on the specified IP address. Is that possible?

Thank you.

[blodha]

Hi ALL,

did anyone found any solution for this... I am having the same problem...

Can anyone please help...

[kjpadilla84]

I actually found the answer, I found that if you redirect to tty2 you'll get the installation screen over serial. I had to do that with PXEBoot. Here's a copy of my config:

default vmware

prompt 1

menu title VMware VMvisor Boot Menu

timeout 50

label vmware

kernel vmware/esx4.1/mboot.c32

append vmware/esx4.1/vmkboot.gz com1_Port=0x3f8 tty2Port=com1 --- vmware/esx4.1/vmkernel.gz --- vmware/esx4.1/sys.vgz --- vmware/esx4.1/cim.vgz --- vmware/esx4.1/ienviron.vgz --- vmware/esx4.1/install.vgz --- vmware/esx4.1/image.tgz

I hope this works out for everyone else who runs into this issue!

[kjpadilla84]

Also, make sure that "console redirection after boot" is enabled. It took me 5 days to find this solution.

[kjpadilla84]

and by default com1 is disabled, so you'll have to enable it via com1_Port=0x3f8 in the options.

[ericjln]

Everything loogs good until after "install.vgz" gets loaded. Then the screen goes blank.

On the original install disk, some old-school VGA style graphics, will colors and what-not, come up. It doesn't look like a proper console or curses interface - it looks like something powered by a graphics card.

Here's my isolinux.cfg file

default menu.c32
menu title VMware VMvisor Boot Menu
timeout 80

label ESXi Installer
menu label ^ESXi Installer
kernel mboot.c32
append vmkboot.gz --- vmkernel.gz --- sys.vgz --- cim.vgz --- ienviron.vgz --- install.vgz ---

label ^Boot from local disk
menu label ^Boot from local disk
localboot 0x80

[Simon_H]

Interesting. Presumably people are looking at this for headless lab installations, e.g. where the processor doesn't have on-board graphics (such as the Intel i7 extreme like the i7-3820) and you don't want to waste power/money on a separate graphics card? IMO once ESXi is installed and running there's very rarely a need for the console display.

[mslass]

My original post is motivated by my having prototype F5 appliances lying around, none of which have video cards or even a connector for a video card.  F5 uses the serial port for all pre-network-state communication with our appliances.  They've got fast disks and 64-bit processors with virtualization support, and plenty of memory, but are not suitable for use as BIG-IPs because the prototype hardware is sufficiently dissimilar from the production version that the released version of BIG-IP won't run on the prototype hardware.  Linux runs just fine on them, though, and the CentOS installer has provisions for running an ncurses install over the serial port.  I have been hoping to use one or more of these boxes as VMWare hypervisors, but I've still never managed to get an installation to complete via the serial port.