[ipxe-devel] Installing ESXi with ipxe

[Thomas Glanzmann]

Hello,
I try to install ESXi with ipxe. I compiled the current git HEAD with
these two options enabled:

IMAGE_COMBOOT and SANBOOT_PROTO_HTTP

I'm able to boot the installer using sanboot with:

:esxi7
sanboot http://10.10.10.1/vSphere-7/U2/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0U2a-17867351.x86_64.iso

However I'm not able to boot the automated installation:

kernel -n mboot.c32 http://10.10.10.1/esxi7/mboot.c32
imgargs mboot.c32 -c http://10.10.10.1/ipxe/esxi7.cfg
boot mboot.c32

When I try that, I see the following output:

http://10.10.10.1/esxi7/mboot.c32... ok
_ [Blinking cursor in the next line]

But nothing else. I would like to know if someone has figured out a way to
automatically install ESXi using ipxe. With my previous version I used
undionly.kpxe with the above. That no longer works with my new hardware,
because it says the network interface is down, but it is not, so I switched to
ipxe.pxe which works otherwise for me (sanboot and loading Linux Kernels
and initrds).

if not exists ipxe.bus-id {
        filename "ipxe.pxe";
} else {
        filename "http://10.10.10.1/ipxe/ipxe.cfg";
}

Hardware: 1U4LW-X570/2L2T

I'm booting from the x550-t2.

Cheers,
        Thomas