koan EXSi support

[William Muriithi]

Hello,

I have a hyper-visor EXSi version 6 and I am looking at using cobbler
for virtual machine provisioning.  I had initially scanned the docs
and somehow got a feeling EXSi is supported.

However, after spending the last 4 hours attempting it, and after
researching and reading all I could find, it seem like EXSi isn't
supported.

Have anyone managed provisioning vmware based virtual machine using
koan?  Would be grateful if you can share a link to your notes or any
data that can lead me toward a successful goal

Regards,
William

[Scott Mattan]

William,

I haven’t used cobbler with ESXI in a while, so I don’t exactly remember
what the parameters were... but I know that you need to have a couple of
kernel options set in your profile.  I had my setup completely automated,
but it got erased when my section got reorganized.  Ideally you should be
able to press the power-button and have your OS installed, updated, and
setup for you.  Admittedly, what I mostly worked with was kvm or
bare-metal, but I had some ESXI servers in the loop as well.

Let me see if I have any notes from left over from that project.  In the
meantime if anyone else knows the answer off the top of their head please
let us know.
I am at work right now, so it might be ~7 hours or so before I can get back
to you, but since we are likely in different time-zones, I'm sure that
isn't a problem.

Godspeed,
Scott


*******************************************************
Scott Mattan 【マッタン・スコット】
NISCOM Inc.
Software Service Solution Department
Tel:[phone] / Mobile:[phone]
*******************************************************


On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 5:47 AM, William Muriithi <william.muriithi(a)gmail.com
>  wrote: 
>  Hello,
>
>  I have a hyper-visor EXSi version 6 and I am looking at using cobbler
>  for virtual machine provisioning.  I had initially scanned the docs
>  and somehow got a feeling EXSi is supported.
>
>  However, after spending the last 4 hours attempting it, and after
>  researching and reading all I could find, it seem like EXSi isn't
>  supported.
>
>  Have anyone managed provisioning vmware based virtual machine using
>  koan?  Would be grateful if you can share a link to your notes or any
>  data that can lead me toward a successful goal
>
>  Regards,
>  William
>  _______________________________________________
>  cobbler mailing list -- cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email to cobbler-leave(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>

[William Muriithi]

Hi Scott,


>  I haven’t used cobbler with ESXI in a while, so I don’t exactly
> remember
>  what the parameters were... but I know that you need to have a couple of
>  kernel options set in your profile.  I had my setup completely automated,
>  but it got erased when my section got reorganized.  Ideally you should be
>  able to press the power-button and have your OS installed, updated, and
>  setup for you.  Admittedly, what I mostly worked with was kvm or bare-metal,
>  but I had some ESXI servers in the loop as well. 
Thanks for that info.  It mean its well supported on ESXI, I just have
to figure out how to do it

>  Let me see if I have any notes from left over from that project.  In the
>  meantime if anyone else knows the answer off the top of their head please
>  let us know.
>  I am at work right now, so it might be ~7 hours or so before I can get back
>  to you, but since we are likely in different time-zones, I'm sure that isn't
>  a problem.
>  
No problem Scott, take your time.  I really appreciate your effort and
look forward to your notes.

I am curious, where one should run the command below, it looks like on
the ESXI, reading between lines, but none of the articles online
highlight that explicitly.

koan --virt --server=cobbler.eng.example.com --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
--virt-type=vmware   --virt-name=lithium.eng.example.com

If its on ESXi, how do you install koan to virtual machine thats don't
have a operating system yet? I have a system with the virtual machine
already setup on cobbler side as follows:

cobbler system add --name=lithium --hostname=lithium.eng.example.com
--gateway=192.168.20.168 --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
--dns-name=lithium.eng.example.com --mac=00:50:56:9e:fe:1a
--ip-address=192.168.20.3 --subnet=255.255.255.0 --status=production
--interface=em1 --static=1

Regards,
William

[Scott Mattan]

William,

Sorry I am late to respond.. and I also further apologize as I seem to have
misread your request.. I missed the part about koan, unfortunately I've
never used koan to provision in my setup, I like you had too many issues
getting it working right.  Instead I used scripts that acted directly with
ESXI CLI, kvm (virt-install), etc. to boot new virtual machines, which
would then install the default profile via pxe boot, self register with
cobbler and then reinstall to the appropriate OS/settings (based on
settings within the default profile, and or script, which I changed
depending on the install.)

I looked through my files, and I have some of my scripts, but I don't have
any of the cobbler settings themselves.

If possible could you provide the output for any errors that you are
getting? I could help you take a look (it would also be nice to finally get
around to learning koan... :)  ).

Respectfully,

Scott

(((FYI, (although it's not related to your issue) I am also attempting to
build a potential upgrade to cobbler that will hopefully allow
OS/Configuration for rack-scale installations based on switch/switchport of
the installed server,)))

*******************************************************
Scott Mattan 【マッタン・スコット】
NISCOM Inc.
Software Service Solution Department
Tel:[phone] / Mobile:[phone]
*******************************************************


On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 9:24 PM, William Muriithi <william.muriithi(a)gmail.com
>  wrote: 
>  Hi Scott,
>
>
>  > I haven’t used cobbler with ESXI in a while, so I don’t exactly remember
>  > what the parameters were... but I know that you need to have a couple of
>  > kernel options set in your profile.  I had my setup completely automated,
>  > but it got erased when my section got reorganized.  Ideally you should be
>  > able to press the power-button and have your OS installed, updated, and
>  > setup for you.  Admittedly, what I mostly worked with was kvm or
>  bare-metal,
>  > but I had some ESXI servers in the loop as well.
>
>  Thanks for that info.  It mean its well supported on ESXI, I just have
>  to figure out how to do it
>
>  >
>  > Let me see if I have any notes from left over from that project.  In the
>  > meantime if anyone else knows the answer off the top of their head please
>  > let us know.
>  > I am at work right now, so it might be ~7 hours or so before I can get
>  back
>  > to you, but since we are likely in different time-zones, I'm sure that
>  isn't
>  > a problem.
>  >
>  No problem Scott, take your time.  I really appreciate your effort and
>  look forward to your notes.
>
>  I am curious, where one should run the command below, it looks like on
>  the ESXI, reading between lines, but none of the articles online
>  highlight that explicitly.
>
>  koan --virt --server=cobbler.eng.example.com --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
>  --virt-type=vmware   --virt-name=lithium.eng.example.com
>
>  If its on ESXi, how do you install koan to virtual machine thats don't
>  have a operating system yet? I have a system with the virtual machine
>  already setup on cobbler side as follows:
>
>  cobbler system add --name=lithium --hostname=lithium.eng.example.com
>  --gateway=192.168.20.168 --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
>  --dns-name=lithium.eng.example.com --mac=00:50:56:9e:fe:1a
>  --ip-address=192.168.20.3 --subnet=255.255.255.0 --status=production
>  --interface=em1 --static=1
>
>  Regards,
>  William
>  _______________________________________________
>  cobbler mailing list -- cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>  To unsubscribe send an email to cobbler-leave(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
>

[Scott Mattan]

William,

I forgot to add, that I typically install koan to do the self-registration,
and I do it through the kickstart/snippets.

Let me know what kind of errors that your having, and Ill see what I can do
to help.

Respectfully,

Scott

*******************************************************
Scott Mattan 【マッタン・スコット】
NISCOM Inc.
Software Service Solution Department
Tel:[phone] / Mobile:[phone]
*******************************************************


On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 11:28 AM, Scott Mattan <s-mattan(a)niscom.co.jp&gt; wrote:

>  William,
>
>  Sorry I am late to respond.. and I also further apologize as I seem to
>  have misread your request.. I missed the part about koan, unfortunately
>  I've never used koan to provision in my setup, I like you had too many
>  issues getting it working right.  Instead I used scripts that acted
>  directly with ESXI CLI, kvm (virt-install), etc. to boot new virtual
>  machines, which would then install the default profile via pxe boot, self
>  register with cobbler and then reinstall to the appropriate OS/settings
>  (based on settings within the default profile, and or script, which I
>  changed depending on the install.)
>
>  I looked through my files, and I have some of my scripts, but I don't have
>  any of the cobbler settings themselves.
>
>  If possible could you provide the output for any errors that you are
>  getting? I could help you take a look (it would also be nice to finally get
>  around to learning koan... :)  ).
>
>  Respectfully,
>
>  Scott
>
>  (((FYI, (although it's not related to your issue) I am also attempting to
>  build a potential upgrade to cobbler that will hopefully allow
>  OS/Configuration for rack-scale installations based on switch/switchport of
>  the installed server,)))
>
>  *******************************************************
>  Scott Mattan 【マッタン・スコット】
>  NISCOM Inc.
>  Software Service Solution Department
>  Tel:[phone] / Mobile:[phone]
>  *******************************************************
>
>
>  On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 9:24 PM, William Muriithi <
>  william.muriithi(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>
> > Hi Scott,
> >
> >
> > > I haven’t used cobbler with ESXI in a while, so I don’t exactly remember
> > > what the parameters were... but I know that you need to have a couple of
> > > kernel options set in your profile.  I had my setup completely
> > automated,
> > > but it got erased when my section got reorganized.  Ideally you should
> > be
> > > able to press the power-button and have your OS installed, updated, and
> > > setup for you.  Admittedly, what I mostly worked with was kvm or
> > bare-metal,
> > > but I had some ESXI servers in the loop as well.
> >
> > Thanks for that info.  It mean its well supported on ESXI, I just have
> > to figure out how to do it
> >
> > >
> > > Let me see if I have any notes from left over from that project.  In the
> > > meantime if anyone else knows the answer off the top of their head
> > please
> > > let us know.
> > > I am at work right now, so it might be ~7 hours or so before I can get
> > back
> > > to you, but since we are likely in different time-zones, I'm sure that
> > isn't
> > > a problem.
> > >
> > No problem Scott, take your time.  I really appreciate your effort and
> > look forward to your notes.
> >
> > I am curious, where one should run the command below, it looks like on
> > the ESXI, reading between lines, but none of the articles online
> > highlight that explicitly.
> >
> > koan --virt --server=cobbler.eng.example.com --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
> > --virt-type=vmware   --virt-name=lithium.eng.example.com
> >
> > If its on ESXi, how do you install koan to virtual machine thats don't
> > have a operating system yet? I have a system with the virtual machine
> > already setup on cobbler side as follows:
> >
> > cobbler system add --name=lithium --hostname=lithium.eng.example.com
> > --gateway=192.168.20.168 --profile=rhel7.3-x86_64
> > --dns-name=lithium.eng.example.com --mac=00:50:56:9e:fe:1a
> > --ip-address=192.168.20.3 --subnet=255.255.255.0 --status=production
> > --interface=em1 --static=1
> >
> > Regards,
> > William
> > _______________________________________________
> > cobbler mailing list -- cobbler(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> > To unsubscribe send an email to cobbler-leave(a)lists.fedorahosted.org
> >
>
>