Despite the apparent ease described in official docs regarding ESXi 5.1 PXE installation (and indeed, the actual ease with which v4.1 was setup), I have not managed to successfully boot the ESXi v5.1 installer via PXE. Using the "-c boot.cfg" paramenter with mboot.c32 refused to boot at all for me, but I was able to load the kernel and modules by listing them explicitly in the PXE config file.
I use pxelinux on CentOS 5.9, pxelinux.cfg/default has an entry like this:
LABEL esxi51-64
KERNEL mboot.c32
APPEND esxi/iso51/tboot.b00 --- esxi/iso51/b.b00 --- esxi/iso51/useropts.gz --- esxi/iso51/k.b00 --- esxi/iso51/chardevs.b00 --- esxi/iso51/a.b00 --- esxi/iso51/user.b00 --- esxi/iso51/s.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v01 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v02 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v03 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v04 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v05 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v06 --- esxi/iso51/ata_pata.v07 --- esxi/iso51/block_cc.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ehci_ehc.v00 --- esxi/iso51/weaselin.t00 --- esxi/iso51/esx_dvfi.v00 --- esxi/iso51/xlibs.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ima_qla4.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ipmi_ipm.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ipmi_ipm.v01 --- esxi/iso51/ipmi_ipm.v02 --- esxi/iso51/misc_cni.v00 --- esxi/iso51/misc_dri.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_be2n.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_bnx2.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_bnx2.v01 --- esxi/iso51/net_cnic.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_e100.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_e100.v01 --- esxi/iso51/net_enic.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_forc.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_igb.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_ixgb.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_nx_n.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_r816.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_r816.v01 --- esxi/iso51/net_s2io.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_sky2.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_tg3.v00 --- esxi/iso51/net_vmxn.v00 --- esxi/iso51/ohci_usb.v00 --- esxi/iso51/sata_ahc.v00 --- esxi/iso51/sata_ata.v00 --- esxi/iso51/sata_sat.v00 --- esxi/iso51/sata_sat.v01 --- esxi/iso51/sata_sat.v02 --- esxi/iso51/sata_sat.v03 --- esxi/iso51/sata_sat.v04 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_aac.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_adp.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_aic.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_bnx.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_fni.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_hps.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_ips.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_lpf.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_meg.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_meg.v01 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_meg.v02 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_mpt.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_mpt.v01 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_mpt.v02 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_qla.v00 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_qla.v01 --- esxi/iso51/scsi_rst.v00 --- esxi/iso51/uhci_usb.v00 --- esxi/iso51/tools.t00 --- esxi/iso51/xorg.v00 --- esxi/iso51/imgdb.tgz --- esxi/iso51/imgpayld.tgz
A booting system loads the modules correctly, as expected. But as soon as it has finished loading the last module, the system immediately reboots. Any amount of fiddling I have tried has failed to yield any change. There is nothing obvious to suggest what the problem might be, no errors appear onscreen
I used the files from VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.1.0-799733.x86_64.iso
Any similar results from others? Any tips from anyone who did get this working? Any random thoughts to narrow down a cause?