Boot image files and placeholders
To provision Microsoft Windows and Linux machines, you must create boot image files specific to BMC Server Automation. The system contains placeholders for these files.
The type of boot image file you create depends on the types of machines you plan to provision.
If you plan to provision... | You need to create... |
|---|---|
Windows machines | Create WinPE image files. See Creating-WinPE-2-0-and-later-boot-image-files |
Linux machines | Create a Gentoo Linux image file. See Creating-a-Gentoo-Linux-image-file. |
A placeholder is a pointer to a BMC Server Automation-specific image file. After you create the image files and put them in the correct places on the TFTP server, you can use the default placeholders built into the system.
Placeholders let you specify which image file to use in provisioning a device. For example, if you add a device, the BMC Server Automation Console displays a drop-down menu of image files that you can associate with the device.
BMC Server Automation contains the following default placeholders:
Boot image file | Description |
|---|---|
blade.img | Used only when working with legacy system packages. |
gentoo32 | Used to provision x86 Linux machines. |
gentoo64 | Used to provision AMD64 Linux machines. |
Skip Linux Pre-Install | Used to provision a device with the Red Hat, VMware ESX, or SUSE operating system when you want to skip the Gentoo pre-installation image. For information, see Using-the-Skip-Linux-Pre-Install-image-option. |
ESXi 4.0 (vmkboot.gz) | Used to provision AMD64 machines with ESXi 4.0. For information, see Provisioning-target-servers-with-ESXi-4-0. |
WindowsPE_2_x_Image | Used to provision x86 Windows machines. |
WindowsPE_2_x_x64_Image | Used to provision AMD64 and Windows machines. |
WindowsPE_2_x_ISO_Image | Used to provision x86 Windows machines from removable or CD-ROM media connected to the machine. For information, see Provisioning-Windows-2003-or-2008-servers-from-a-local-data-store. |
WindowsPE_2_x_x64_ISO_Image | Used to provision AMD64 and Windows machines from removable or CD-ROM media connected to the machine. For information, see Provisioning-Windows-2003-or-2008-servers-from-a-local-data-store. |
Boot image configurations
In addition to pointing to an image file, a placeholder provides default configuration settings for the image in the BMC Server Automation system. These configuration settings include: image type, image file name, description, image path (kernel name), and whether the image is the default boot image.
To view configuration settings for an image, in the BMC Server Automation Console, select Configurations > Provisioning Configurations. Then click the Image Files tab.