I had a customer that had a requirement to backup the ESX Service Console settings and wanted to know the best files to backup. I suggested that it may be more prudent to create unattended installation media to make restores more seamless. This took a turn and I was asked to make a single CD that was capable of restoring any one of the 11 ESX hosts in the clusters. With a lot of reading and a lot of testing this was achieved and this document explains how I did it.

Most of the information came from a multitude of different blog posts and knowledge base articles, but the two main articles are referenced in the appendix, but they deserve special mention:

VMProfessional – Custom .iso with integrated kickstarts

Yellow Bricks – Scripted install

These sites are always fantastic, but they proved absolutely invaluable for me during this exercise, so thanks guys.

I hope that the document adds some value, but if you think that I have got anything wrong or can offer some enhancements please don’t hesitate to comment on the post and I will update the document.