esxi/disk-install-override

Set the ESXi software install acceptance level.

Some hardware (namely HPE with "Smart" Array controllers do not iterate the disks smartly. This causes the ESXi install strategy to fail when the RAID controller is specified as a RAID 1 device with passthrough mode for the remainder of the devices. ESXi does not build an appropriate device type for us to handle with the --disk=mpx.vmhb0:... strategy.

This Param will override the ESXi Kickstart install ... directive and select a given supported strategy for finding the disk to install to.

The currently supported install directives are defined below:

Directive	Notes
first_disk	Sets the install disk target to the default value of '--firstdisk'. Primarily useful only for testing the code path of this content, since this is the default behavior if nothing else is specified.
find_first_naa	Selects the first device that is iterated in the /vmfs/devices/disks directory, with the name beginning with 'naa.*'
find_first_dellboss_vd	Sets disk to first JBOSS Virtual Disk on Dell systems.
find_disk_name	Sets disk to the first pattern matched by the first argument to the function. The input string is surrounded by \*.

find_disk_name MUST be called with an additional argument that is a pattern. An example value is:

find_disk_name 'disk.v1'

Using the above listed strategies will set the Kickstart install command as follows:

install --disk=<FOUND_DEVICE>

If other install options need to be specified (eg --overwritevmfs), you must also set those as the Param esxi/disk-install-override-options and they will be appended to the above example install command. Here is an example:

# with 'esxi/disk-install-override-options' set to '--overwritevmfs'
# the 'install' command will be built up as follows:

install --disk=/vmfs/devices/disks/naa.60... --overwritevmfs

Note

Other override strategies may be added as additional in-the-field requirements dictate.

Note that custom functions can be injected in to the template to support strategies that are not directly released with this content. This allows for custom in-the-field templates to be built, and injected in to the DRP endpoint to support new "strategies" as needed.

If new strategies are developed/used, please contact RackN to help ensure these are added in to standard product so field customizations are not necessary.

The Param type definition does not include an enum: ... list as custom strategies may be injected via the esxi/disk-install-override-custom Param.