Configuring appliance hardware BIOS
The steps to configure the appliance hardware vary depending on the server vendor’s BIOS user interface. Usually, this configuration is performed when BIOS comes up. If you have any questions or issues, contact your hardware manufacturer.
We recommend that you use the ESXi image provided by your server vendor. The Edge Installation Server uses a generic ESXi image that may not contain all the required drivers.
1. If your appliance has a master power switch, ensure that it is in the off position.
2. Plug the AC power cord into the appliance.
3. Plug the AC power cord into an uninterrupted AC power source.
4. Plug the straight-through cable into the primary port of the appliance and the LAN switch so that it is in the installation network. The primary port can be any port on your LAN switch configured to connect to a host.
5. Using the appropriate hardware and software, connect to the console of the appliance.
6. Press the appliance power switch on and check the status lights.
7. Configure BIOS so that the disk for ESXi installation appears as first in the list. ESXi kickstart installs ESXi using the command install --firstdisk —overwritevmfs.
8. Edge requires two RAID 1 or RAID 10 volumes. Using the server vendor’s RAID configuration procedure, configure RAID volumes on the server hardware. Use two or more SSD drives to create a RAID 1/10 volume for the cache disks.
9. Use two or more HDDs or SSDs to create a RAID 1/10 volume for storing the blockstore. The minimum size is the same as the HDD volume size.
10. Disable disk caching on the HDDs.
11. Set up the boot settings to boot using the first disk on which ESXi will get installed.
12. The server BIOS allows you to trigger a PXE-based boot by pressing a special key at the time of boot to override normal boot order. If this feature requires you to choose a certain order of NICs to attempt a PXE boot, configure the primary NIC as the first NIC. If the BIOS supports both IPv4 and IPv6, configure the primary NIC to be IPv4 only.
13. Save the changes to the BIOS configurations.
14. Power cycle the appliance.
15. After the appliance reboots, press the appropriate key to trigger PXE booting. The appliance PXE boots using the Edge Installation Server and is discovered by the Installation Server as a target for installation. On the console you will see normal ESXi installation progress.
16. Once the ESXi installation completes successfully, return to the Edge Installation Server console and follow the on-screen instructions to proceed with the installation of this appliance.