ESXi 4 kickstart and ESXi 5 kickstart examples

What is changed in ESXi 5 kickstart:
1. ESXi 5 supports EFI PXE boot(the file is under install media\EFI\boot)
2. ESXi 5 loads all needed packages into memory, there is no need to specify installation media in http/nfs etc
3. ESXi 5 supports vlan tagging by –vlanid parameter, previously PXE boot NIC has to be native vlan (VLAN 1)
4. ESXi 5 no longer supports set license data in kickstart file

ESXi 4 kickstart file example

vmaccepteula
#create encrypted password with command “openssl passwd -1”
rootpw --iscrypted $1$XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
autopart --firstdisk=mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0 --overwritevmfs
install url http://172.16.1.18/boot/XXXX
network --device=vmnic0   --hostname=esxi1  --bootproto=static  --ip=172.16.1.4 --netmask=255.255.255.224 --gateway=172.16.1.30 --nameserver="172.16.1.18,172.16.1.19"
serialnum --esx=4H42M-XXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
%post --interpreter=busybox --ignorefailure=true
reboot
#enable local console and remote ssh login
%firstboot --interpreter=busybox
/etc/init.d/TSM start
/etc/init.d/TSM-SSH  start
/sbin/chkconfig TSM on
/sbin/chkconfig TSM-SSH on

ESXi 5 kickstart file example

vmaccepteula
#create encrypted password with command “openssl passwd -1”
rootpw --iscrypted $1$XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
clearpart --firstdisk=local --overwritevmfs
install --firstdisk --overwritevmfs
#ESXi 5 retrieve software from the image loaded into memory by PXE, so there is no need to specify software repository location
network --device=vmnic0  --vlanid=3 --hostname=esxi2  --bootproto=static  --ip=172.16.1.5 --netmask=255.255.255.224 --gateway=172.16.1.30 --nameserver="172.16.1.18,172.16.1.19"
#loading license data in kickstart file not longer supported in ESXi 5
#serialnum --esx=4H42M-XXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
%post --interpreter=busybox --ignorefailure=true
reboot
#enable local console and remote ssh login
%firstboot --interpreter=busybox
/etc/init.d/SSH start
/etc/init.d/ESXShell start
/sbin/chkconfig SSH on
/sbin/chkconfig ESXShell  on