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Updating handshakeTimeoutMs setting for ESXi 7.x & 8.x using configstorecli

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With the introduction of the ESXi Configuration Store back in vSphere 7.0 Update 1, all ESXi configuration changes should be managed using either the configstorecli for an individual ESXi host or leveraging the new vSphere Configuration Profiles (VCP) for scale with vCenter Server.

For certain ESXi hostd configurations such as configuring the handshakeTimeoutUs property, which has changed locations from several locations including /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml and /etc/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg to now /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/config.xml in the latest ESXi 8.x release, it can be challenging to figure out the correct configstorecli syntax.

Having spent some time playing with the configstorecli, I was able to quickly help a customer recently who was looking to update the handshakeTimeoutUs property for ESXi 7.x and I wanted to make it easy for folks to find the syntax for both ESXi 7.x and 8.x.

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Quick Tip - Automating cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic configuration for ESXi Kickstart with USB

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To prevent ESXi from PSOD'ing when an Intel Hybrid Consumer CPU is detected with non-uniform capabilities, a workaround can be applied to ignore the uniformity miss-match which is needed before the ESXi installer fully boots up and also after the initial reboot.

For those looking to fully automate this process using ESXi Kickstart using USB as an example, there are two places where the kernel boot option must be added:

1) The first is the EFI\boot\boot.cfg file on the ESXi installer media (e.g. USB) where you will append to the kernelopt line as shown in the snippet below:

bootstate=0
title=Loading ESXi installer
timeout=5
prefix=
kernel=/b.b00
kernelopt=ks=usb:/KS.CFG cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE
.....

2) The second must be added to the %post section of your ESXi kickstart, which will update the first ESXi bootbank's boot.cfg and ensure the kernel option is passed to ESXi when it reboots after installation:

%post --interpreter=busybox

sed -i '/^kernelopt=/ s/$/ cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE/' /vmfs/volumes/BOOTBANK1/boot.cfg

Disable IPv6 in ESXi Kickstart without additional reboot

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ESXi supports dual stack networking (IPv4 and IPv6) by default, however users can also configure just IPv4 or IPv6, which requires a system reboot for the changes to go into effect.

Recently, I received a question from a colleague asking if there was a way to disable IPv6 during ESXi Kickstart (aka scripted installation) but NOT require an additional reboot as this setting is typically added in the %post or %firstboot section, which will require an additional reboot due to changing the networking stack default.

The solution was actually quite simple by just leveraging the %pre section, which would ensure that IPv6 is disabled upon the initial reboot after the ESXi installation.

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