© 2009 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

VMware PXE Manager

April 2011

Prepared from Max Daneri

Copyright © 2011 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and

intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents.

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What is PXE Manager

VMware PXE Manager is a management tools,

it supports automatic PXE boot (network boot using PXE) and automatic

customization of large numbers of ESXi systems,

Other features are ESXi state management and ESXi patches

management.

vCenter

Main Datacenter

PXE Manager

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Screenshot

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Features

Automated provisioning of new ESXi hosts stateless and statefull (no ESX)

ESXi host state (firmware) backup, restore, and archiving with retention

ESXi builds repository management (stateless and statefull)

ESXi Patch management

Multi vCenter support

Multi network support with agents (Linux CentOS virtual appliance will be available later)

Wake on Lan

Hosts memtest

vCenter plugin

Deploy directly to VMware Cloud Director

Deploy to Cisco UCS blades

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OS Supported

Server

• Windows 2003 R2 any service pack

• Windows 2008 any service pack

• Windows 2008 R2 any service pack (suggested)

Agent

• Windows 2003 R2 only any service pack

• Windows 2008 any service pack

• Windows 2008 R2 any service pack

• Linux Redhat 5.3 5.4 5.5 (*)

• Linux CentOS 5.3 5.4 5.5(*)

• Open Suse 11.x(*)

• Novell Suse enterprise 11(*)

Plugin

• see vSphere client OS support

(*) Novell mono 2.6.7 is required

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Requirement

Server and Agent – Windows

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-

81da479ab0d7

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 Update KB 959209

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/959209

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistributable Package (x64) (Agent only)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=bd512d9e-43c8-4655-81bf-

9350143d5867

Agent – Linux

• Novell Mono 2.6.7 http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html

Plugin

• See vSphere client OS requirement

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Multi vCenter configuration

vCenter

PXE Agent

Datacenter A

vCenter

PXE Agent

Datacenter B

vCenter

PXE Agent

Datacenter C

vCenter

Main Datacenter

PXE Manager

vCenter Linked communication

PXE Manager communication

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GPXE booting process

ESXi target host

ESXi host

DHCP (*)

TFTP

HTTP

On line

Configuration

Apply profile

Join vCloud

Save host state

UDP 68-67

Give me an IP

IP & TFTP

UDP 69

Give me the boat Loader

gpxeinux.0

TCP 8733

Give me Kernel & RamDisk

Kernel & RamDisk

TCP 3333 I’m online

Host is online start

configuration

SOAP 443

SOAP 443

https 902 I’m on vCloud director

REST 443

I’m on vCenter

I’ve my profile

SOAP 8732

Give me Host state

Host state

SOAP 443

Take my host state

VMware vCenter

VMware vCloud Director

PXE Agent

Host is online

Start

configuration

Apply Host

profile

Add to PVDC

Save Host state

SOAP 443

SOAP 443

Give me Host state

Host state

SOAP 443

PXE Server

(*) DHCP is not RFC compliant

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PXE booting process

ESXi target host

ESXi host

DHCP (*)

TFTP

TFTP

On line

Configuration

Apply profile

Join vCloud

Save host state

UDP 67-68

Give me an IP

IP & TFTP

UDP 69

Give me the boat Loader

gpxeinux.0

UDP 69

Give me Kernel & RamDisk

Kernel & RamDisk

TCP 3333 I’m online

Host is online start

configuration

SOAP 443

SOAP 443

https 902 I’m on vCloud director

REST 443

I’m on vCenter

I’ve my profile

SOAP 8732

Give me Host state

Host state

SOAP 443

Take my host state

VMware vCenter

VMware vCloud Director

PXE Agent

Host is online

Start

configuration

Apply Host

profile

Add to PVDC

Save Host state

SOAP 443

SOAP 443

Give me Host state

Host state

SOAP 443

PXE Server

(*) DHCP is not RFC compliant

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Cost & Licenses

Price: Free

License: Technical Preview License

more info to: http://labs.vmware.com/tech-agreement

Download: http://labs.vmware.com/flings/pxe-manager

Availability: Q2 2011