6.0.2

Table Of Contents
clearpart (optional)
Clears any existing partitions on the disk. Requires the install command to be specied. Carefully edit the
clearpart command in your existing scripts.
--drives=
Remove partitions on the specied drives.
--alldrives
Ignores the --drives= requirement and allows clearing of partitions on every
drive.
--ignoredrives=
Removes partitions on all drives except those specied. Required unless the
--drives= or --alldrives ag is specied.
--overwritevmfs
Allows overwriting of VMFS partitions on the specied drives. By default,
overwriting VMFS partitions is not allowed.
--firstdisk=
disk-type1
[disk-type2,...]
Partitions the rst eligible disk found. By default, the eligible disks are set to
the following order:
1 Locally aached storage (local)
2 Network storage (remote)
3 USB disks (usb)
You can change the order of the disks by using a comma-separated list
appended to the argument. If you provide a lter list, the default seings are
overridden. You can combine lters to specify a particular disk, including
esx for the rst disk with ESXi installed on it, model and vendor
information, or the name of the VMkernel device driver. For example, to
prefer a disk with the model name ST3120814A and any disk that uses the
mptsas driver rather than a normal local disk, the argument is
--firstdisk=ST3120814A,mptsas,local.
dryrun (optional)
Parses and checks the installation script. Does not perform the installation.
install
Species that this is a fresh installation. Replaces the deprecated autopart command used for ESXi 4.1
scripted installations. Either the install, upgrade, or installorupgrade command is required to determine
which disk to install or upgrade ESXi on.
--disk= or --drive=
Species the disk to partition. In the command --disk=diskname, the diskname
can be in any of the forms shown in the following examples:
n
Path: --disk=/vmfs/devices/disks/mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
n
MPX name: --disk=mpx.vmhba1:C0:T0:L0
n
VML name: --disk=vml.000000034211234
n
vmkLUN UID: --disk=vmkLUN_UID
For accepted disk name formats, see “Disk Device Names,” on page 181.
--firstdisk=
disk-type1,
[disk-type2,...]
Partitions the rst eligible disk found. By default, the eligible disks are set to
the following order:
1 Locally aached storage (local)
2 Network storage (remote)
Chapter 9 Upgrading Hosts
VMware, Inc. 175