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Installing ESX Server using NFS over TCP (1015512)
Details
An NFS server can be configured to support TCP protocol to increase transmission integrity. However, ESX Server only supports UDP protocol during the installation. In ESX Server 3.5 Update 5, a new option nfsopts is added to enable ESX Server installation using NFS over TCP.
Solution
Normal Install of ESX Server using NFS over TCP
If you are performing a normal installation of ESX Server using a CDROM, you must type the following when the boot prompt appears: nfsopts=tcp If the nfsopts directive is not provided, UDP protocol will be used for NFS.
Scripted Install of ESX Server using NFS over TCP
For a scripted install driven by kickstart, you must add nfsopts=tcp to the PXE boot options as follows: DEFAULT esx35 LABEL esx35 KERNEL esx35/vmlinuz APPEND utf8 nofb root=/dev/ram console=tty1 ks=nfs:<NFS_Server_IP_Address>:/ks/esx35-001.ks initrd=esx35/initrd.img ksdevice=eth0 ramdisk_size=32768 nfsopts=tcp
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