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How to prompt for user input during an interactive or scripted install of ESXi?

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A question that continues to pop up from time to time is whether it is possible to prompt for user input during an interactive or scripted installation of ESXi? This is actually something I have written about before using PXE boot options as a workaround to provide for a semi-interactive automated installation of ESXi. The most recent request for this was not actually from a customer but rather someone internally working at VMware. The individual noted that he had already read my blog and a few other references but was still hopeful for a solution. I remember when I had looked into this problem several years back, I was not able to find anything and the inquiries to VMware (which I was still a customer at the time) came up empty.

UPDATE (01/10/19) - For ESXi 6.5 or greater, please take a look at this blog post for an updated solution

After replying back to the individual with the information that I had, it actually got me thinking which is usually not good 😉 Having just recently finished building a new Kickstart environment to test UEFI PXE boot for ESXi 6.0, I figure I might as well take another look at this topic again. I wanted to see if there was something that could be done with one of the /dev/ttyl (teletype) interfaces while the ESXi Installation was running. I did a couple of Google searches and to my surprise, there was someone on the VMTN Community forum who had already solved this problem and posted a solution almost 1 year before my article, not sure how I could have missed that?!

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Hope to see you at the Nordic VMUG UserCon in Dec!

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In case you missed it, a couple of weeks back, Liselotte Foverskov one of the leaders for the Nordic VMUG had announced some of the speakers for the upcoming Nordic VMUG UserCon taking place on Dec 1st at the Scandic Hotel in Copenhagen.

I was very fortunate to have been invited out to speak at the event. As you can see from the tweet above, I will also be joined by several of my colleagues from VMware like Paul Strong, Duncan Epping, Cormac Hogan, Paudie O'Riordan and Joerg Lew who will be covering a variety of topics, so there should be something for everyone. This will be my first time visiting Denmark and I am looking forward to meeting everyone and I hope that you can make it out. I also hear Liselotte has an amazing keynote speaker lined up that you will not want to miss! For more details about the event, be sure to visit Nordic VMUG site here.

Below is the topic that I will be presenting on but feel free to find me at the event if you are interested in talking about other topics that you may have on your mind.

Session Title: 

Harnessing the power of the vSphere API for the everyday Admin 

Session Abstract: 

In this session, you will get a brief introduction to the vSphere API and learn how to use and navigate it without needing to become a developer. Building on this foundation, we will then explore some of the different methods and tools that are available to a variety of audiences (vSphere Administrators, Developers, etc) when Automating against the vSphere API. Finally, we will take a look at some practical examples that demonstrates the vSphere API in action which you can then take back with you when you leave the session. 

Automating full configuration of a VSAN Stretched Cluster using RVC

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A couple of weeks back I had spent some time setting up several VSAN Stretched Clusters in my lab for some testing and although it was extremely easy to setup using the vSphere Web Client, I still prefer to stand up the environment completely automated 🙂

In looking to automate the VSAN Stretched Cluster configuration, I was interested in something that would pretty much work out of the box and not require any additional download or setup. The obvious answer would be to use the Ruby vSphere Console (RVC) is a really awesome tool that is available as part of vCenter Server included in both Windows vCenter Server and the VCSA.

For those of you who have not used RVC before, I highly recommend you give it a try and you can take a look at this article to see some of the cool features and benefits. I am making use of the RVC script option which I have written about in the past here to perform the VSAN Stretched Configuration. One of the new RVC namespaces that have been introduced in vSphere 6.0 Update 1 is the vsan.stretchedcluster.* commands and the one we are specifically interested in is the vsan.stretchedcluster.config_witness command.

There are a couple of things the script expects from an environment setup, so I will just spend a few minutes covering the pre-reqs and the assumptions before diving into the script. I will assume you already have a vCenter Server deployed and configured with an empty inventory. I also assume you have already deployed at least two ESXi hosts and a VSAN Witness VM that meets all the VSAN pre-reqs like at least one VSAN enabled VMkernel interface and associated disk requirements. Below is a screenshot of the vSphere Web Client of the initial environment.

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Next, we will need to download the RVC script deploy_stretch_cluster.rb and upload that to your vCenter Server. Before you can execute the script, you will need to edit the script and adjust the variable names based on your environment. Once you have saved the changes, you can then run the RVC script by running the following command:

rvc -s deploy_stretch_cluster.rb [VC-USERNAME]@localhost

Here is a screenshot of running the script on the VCSA using Nested ESXi VMs + VSAN Witness VM for the Stretched Clustering configuration:

aautomate-the-full-configuration-of-vsan-stretched-cluster-using-rvc-1
If everything executed successfully, you should see a "Task result: success" which signifies that the VSAN Witness VM was successfully added to the VSAN Stretched Cluster. If we now refresh the vSphere Web Client and under the Fault Domains configurations in the VSAN Cluster, we now see both our 2-Node VSAN Cluster and the VSAN Witness VM.

automate-the-full-configuration-of-vsan-stretched-cluster-using-rvc-2

Hopefully this script can also benefit others who are interested in quickly standing up a VSAN Stretched Cluster, especially for evaluation or testing purposes. Enjoy getting your VSAN on!