I’ve published a number of ESXi specific posts recently. However, I realize that I tend to publish these at weekends or late in the evening, which isn’t optimal for most readers coming from Planet V12n or Twitter. Sorry, that’s just when I have free time (yes, I’ve heard of delayed publishing in WordPress, but I’m usually too excited and want to get things out there). So here is a wee compilation summarizing the ESXi related ones, just in case they’ve passed you by:
Understanding ESXi – stateless, diskless, feckless – What does ESXi stateless or diskless really mean? This article tries to explain the concepts behind emerging ESXi install options and what defaults you can expect depending on your hardware set-up. It then discusses the impact it can have on your ESXi design.
ESXi disks must be “considered local” for scratch to be created – Some servers’ local disks are actually seen by the ESXi installer as remote. This can change the default install options and create a setup that you weren’t expecting.
Check for ESXi scratch persistence – How to check what the installer has actually done when it installed itself. This looks at the issue examined in the previous post regard ESXi scratch locations, and how to check through your servers.
“Best Practice” for Persistent ESXi scratch? – If your installs have given you mixed configurations, what should you do? I discuss standardizing versus optimizing.
How to PXE boot from your trunked vmnic0 – Typically, your vmnic0 is physically connected to a trunked switch port. PXE booting servers don’t tag their traffic. How do you PXE boot from this same connection without re-cabling?