Just something I noticed today while testing an automated install from NFS. The arguments I pass to the installer are:
initrd=initrd.img mem=512m ksdevice=vmnic1 ip=192.168.1.123 netmask=255.255.255.0 gateway=192.168.1.1 ks=nfs://192.168.1.10:/nfs/install/ks.cfg quiet
Let’s focus on the part that’s incorrect, with ESX 3 the following bit(part of the bootstrap above) would work:
ks=nfs://192.168.1.10:/nfs/install/ks.cfg
As of ESX 4 this doesn’t work anymore, and when I do an “alt-f2” and go to /var/log and check the esx-installer.log file it shows the following error:
mount: 192.168.1.10::nfs/install failed, reason given by server: Permission denied
After checking the permissions on my NFS share 4 times I was pretty certain that this could not cause this issue. After trying some various combinations I noticed that the format of the string for “ks” has changed. As of ESX 4 you can’t use the second colon(:) anymore. So the correct format is:
ks=nfs://192.168.1.10/nfs/install/ks.cfg
I still receive a warning but the installer does continue. If anyone knows why the following message is displayed please speak up:
No COS NICs have been added by the user