6.0.2

Table Of Contents
5 (Optional) For a scripted installation, in the boot.cfg le, add the kernelopt option on the line after the
kernel command to specify the location of the installation script.
In the following example, XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is the IP address of the server where the installation
script resides.
kernelopt=ks=http://XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/esxi_ksFiles/ks.cfg
6 Copy the isolinux.cfg le from the ESXi installer ISO image to the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory.
The isolinux.cfg le contains the following code, where XXXXXX is the build number of the ESXi
installer image:
DEFAULT menu.c32
MENU TITLE ESXi-6.x.x-XXXXXX-full Boot Menu
NOHALT 1
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 80
LABEL install
KERNEL mboot.c32
APPEND -c location of boot.cfg
MENU LABEL ESXi-6.x.x-XXXXXX-full ^Installer
LABEL hddboot
LOCALBOOT 0x80
MENU LABEL ^Boot from local disk
7 Rename the isolinux.cfg le with the MAC address of the target host machine: 01-
mac_address_of_target_ESXi_host. For example, 01-23-45-67-89-0a-bc
8 Boot the machine with the network adapter.
PXE Boot the ESXi Installer Using gPXE
You can PXE boot the ESXi installer using gPXE.
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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HTTP Web server that is accessible by your target ESXi hosts
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DHCP server congured for PXE booting: /etc/dhcpd.conf is congured for client hosts with a TFTP
server and the initial boot le set to gpxelinux.0/undionly.kpxe. See “Sample DHCP Conguration,” on
page 148.
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Server with a hardware conguration that is supported with your version of ESXi. See the Hardware
Compatibility Guide at hp://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.
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gPXELINUX
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(Optional) ESXi installation script. See About Installation and Upgrade Scripts,” on page 174.
Use a native VLAN in most cases. If you want to specify the VLAN ID to be used with PXE booting, check
that your NIC supports VLAN ID specication.
Procedure
1 Copy the contents of the ESXi installer ISO image to the /var/www/html directory on the HTTP server.
vSphere Upgrade
152 VMware, Inc.