6.0.2

Table Of Contents
7 Name the le with the media access control (MAC) address of the target host machine: 01-
mac_address_of_target_ESXi_host.
For example, 01-23-45-67-89-0a-bc.
8 Save the PXE conguration le in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg on the TFTP server.
9 Boot the machine with the network adapter.
PXE Boot the ESXi Installer by Using PXELINUX and an isolinux.cfg PXE
Configuration File
You can PXE boot the ESXi installer by using PXELINUX, and you can use the isolinux.cfg le as the PXE
conguration le.
See also About Installation and Upgrade Scripts,” on page 174 and About the boot.cfg File,” on page 181
Prerequisites
Verify that your environment has the following components:
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The ESXi installer ISO image downloaded from the VMware Web site.
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TFTP server that supports PXE booting with PXELINUX. See About the TFTP Server, PXELINUX, and
gPXE,” on page 146.
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DHCP server congured for PXE booting. See “Sample DHCP Conguration,” on page 148.
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PXELINUX.
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Server with a hardware conguration that is supported with your version of ESXi. See the VMware
Compatibility Guide hp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
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Network security policies to allow TFTP trac (UDP port 69).
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(Optional) Installation script, the kickstart le. See About Installation and Upgrade Scripts,” on
page 174.
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Network adapter with PXE support on the target ESXi host.
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IPv4 networking. IPv6 is not supported for PXE booting.
Use a native VLAN in most cases. To specify the VLAN ID to be used with PXE booting, verify that your
NIC supports VLAN ID specication.
Procedure
1 Create the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory on your TFTP server.
2 On the Linux machine, install PXELINUX.
PXELINUX is included in the Syslinux package. Extract the les, locate the pxelinux.0 le, and copy it
to the /tftpboot directory on your TFTP server.
3 Congure the DHCP server.
The DHCP server sends the following information to your client hosts:
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The name or IP address of your TFTP server
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The name of your initial boot le, pxelinux.0
4 Copy the contents of the ESXi installer image to the /var/lib/tftpboot directory on the TFTP server.
Chapter 8 Before Upgrading Hosts
VMware, Inc. 151