The Disk Partition tab lets you define partitions for the servers being provisioned. In addition, for ESX 4.0 system packages, you can create a storage partition and virtual disk partitions.
Define a partition for ESX system packages by supplying a script or using the Disk Partition dialog:
- To supply a script that defines the partition, select Use script for disk partitioning. Then do one of the following:
- Type the script directly in the input box.
- Type the name of a local property that contains the script, enclosing the property name with double question marks.
- Click Select Property
to display a drop-down menu of available properties. Select the property that contains the script from the list.
To reboot after script execution, click Reboot after the script is executed.
- To define a disk partition using the Disk Partition dialog:
- To create a new partition, in the Disk Partitions area, click Add
. To modify an existing partition, select the partition in the Disk Partition list and click Edit 
. - Provide information in the Disk Partition window and click OK.
Field definitions
| The location within a file directory where a volume should exist. Enter a location or select one from the drop-down list.
ESX 4.0 system packages: To create a data store (storage partition) for the vmfs3 file system type, select Storage 1 from the drop-down menu or type a storage partition name for Mount point/DataStore. |
| Select one of the following file system types: - ext2 — Supports standard UNIX file types and allows file names up to 255 characters.
- ext3 — Supports all features of ext2 plus journaling.
- swap — Supports virtual memory, that is, swapping data in and out of this partition when there is insufficient RAM to perform an operation.
- vmfs3 — Supports the Virtual Machine File System version 3. VMFS is a clustered file system that lets virtual machines access shared storage resources concurrently. Version 3 has a directory structure in the file system.
- vmkcore — Holds the core dump file for the VMkernel.
- vmfs2 — Supports the Virtual Machine File System version 2. VMFS is a clustered file system that lets virtual machines access shared storage resources concurrently. Version 2 has a flat file system. (The ESX 4.0 system package does not support the vmfs2 file system.).
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| The size of the partition in megabytes. To let the partition fill all remaining space on the disk, check Fill all unused space on disk.
ESX 4.0 system package: You can specify both the size of the partition in megabytes and Fill all unused space on disk.
If you are specifying the size of a swap partition, make sure the size you specify is supported by the specific version of this system package's operating system. |
| Enter the device name and optionally, parameters related to the device name. For example:
cciss/c0d0 --asprimary
For ESX 4.0 system packages, note the following: - The generated kickstart file clears the disks specified in this disk partition list. (In earlier releases, the generated kickstart file cleared all partitions connected to the target host.)
- To create physical partitions for /boot, vmkcore, or vmfs3, for Disk/Virtual Disk, type an option for a real hard disk drive, such as sda.
- To create virtual disk partitions for / and /swap, for Disk/Virtual Disk, select the virtual disk from the drop-down menu.
See Creating Virtual Disk Partitions.
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Proceed to the Basic-configuration-ESX tab.