XenServer is primarily being used as a hypervisor platform for XenDesktop VDIs. Although the installation of XenServer 7 is not really difficult it would be nice when installing multiple XenServer hosts that you can automate the installation part. In this article I will describe the possibilities of creating an (almost) unattended installation of XenServer 7.x I will both touch XenServer 7.0 (which we made of a customer. Long story about certification processes of software being used) and the latest version 7.2 (which also applies to 7.1).
PXE versus ISO
The first decision that need to be made how the installation process will be started. There are two options available; PXE boot (which is more challenging from an infrastructure point of view) or booting from the XenServer ISO (which is easier to make, but required some more manual actions during the installation). As you can see both methodologies have some advantages and downsides. In many organization using PXE can be challenging, which also was the case at my customer. Luckily on the Internet several articles are available (for XenServer 6.5, but this has not changed for XenServer 7) so if you want to use PXE google for articles about XenServer 6.5 and PXE and you are good to go. In this article I will use the ISO methodology.
Read the entire article here, VanBragt.Net Virtualization – Unattended Installation XenServer 7.x
Via the fine folks at Wilco van Bragt.
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