ESX Networking setup scripts

esxi_netinit is a Python program to configure network information on an ESXi host, and is intended to be run during the firstboot of ESXi after install.

It will read data provided in the Openstack config-drive format and use that to configure the host.

config-drive files

The files from the config-drive that are used are:

• meta_data.json (to get the supplied hostname)
• network_data.json (to get the network configuration & DNS servers)
• user_data (optional, to control what settings are applied)

What it does

1. Set the device hostname (from the value supplied in meta_data.json)
2. Delete the default ESXi vmkernel (vmk0), portgroup Management Network and vswitch (vswitch0)
3. Create a new vSwitch, portgroup and vmkernel for the management network (from the data supplied in network_data.json)
4. Configure the default route (from the data supplied in network_data.json)
5. Configure the DNS server(s) (from the data supplied in network_data.json)
6. (optionally) Configure additional vswitches, portroups & vmkernels (from the data supplied in network_data.json)
7. Configure any static routes (from the data supplied in network_data.json)

The device should be rebooted after this configuration is applied

user_data settings

The user_data file can be used to control some of the actions of the script.

It is a yaml file, and esxi_netinit will read the following keys (default values shown):

configure_all_networks: false
management_vswitch: "vSwitch0"
management_portgroup: "Management Portgroup"
first_extra_vswitch_number: 1

The keys have the following meanings:

Note that vmkernel nics will be created strictly in sequence vmk0, vmk1, etc.

The default behaviour of the code is to create a single vSwitch, portgroup and vmkernel with the same names that the ESXi installer gives them - this is because other VMware tooling may expect new hypervisor hosts to be configured in this way (e.g. for enrolling into VCF).

However, if your use-case allows for additional network configuration to be applied to the host during provisioning, setting configure_all_networks: true will allow esxi_netinit to do that for you.