What's new:
- With this version you are able to optionally create an (U)EFI-bootable ISO file for the installation of ESXi 5.0. (U)EFI stands for (Universal) Extensible Firmware Interface. This is going to replace the current BIOS firmware interface on modern PCs. Please note that the original VMware ESXi 5.0 ISO is already UEFI-capable, the new version of my script is just able to keep this possibility in the customized ISO.
- The new version includes an additional utility script called Tgz2Vib5. With this script you are able to convert an OEM.tgz-style driver package (for ESXi 5.0 only!) into a VIB file. That is the "official" VMware format for software packages - read more about it in this earlier post!
I'd like to encourage the developers of community supported ESXi 5.0 drivers to convert their packages into VIB format (using Tgz2Vib5) before publishing them! The VIB format has several advantages over the traditional OEM.tgz format:
- You can add descriptive meta data (like vendor/author name, version and detailed description) to the driver package
- Unlike an OEM.tgz file a VIB file can be easily installed into an already running ESXi 5.0 system by running the following commands inside a local or remote ESXi shell:
esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
esxcli software vib install -v VIB-URL
(The host must not run any VMs at install time, because it needs to be rebooted after the installation.) - A VIB file can also be updated with a newer version without having to re-install the whole system. This can be achieved by running the following command inside a local or remote ESXi shell:
esxcli software vib update -v VIB_URL