By:Rick Davis
With the movement to virtual appliance versions of application delivery technologies, I find myself needing an expedient method for deploying the XenServer hypervisor. Normally I’d turn to the CD install, but I’m seeing fewer servers in the datacenter with CD ROMs. Using a USB key is an easier and more elegant approach.
A few Citrix blogs suggested I needed Ubuntu and a long list of commands to get the XenServer ISO to boot from a USB key. But I’ve found that there’s an easier way and it works from Windows; it’s called UNetbootin.
Here are the steps:
- Download XenServer ISO
- Download and run UNetbootin, Universal Netboot Installer
- Select the appropriate ISO and USB Drive and hit OK.
- Make sure your target systems BIOS is set to boot from a legacy USB device and insert the USB key.
- Select INSTALL when UNetbootin prompts you for an action:
You can configure the USB key to skip the Boot Menu by making the following changes:
Rename \syslinux.cfg syslinux_cfg.old
Rename \boot\isolinux syslinux
Rename \boot\syslinux\isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
Enjoy!
Microsoft Virtualization, Citrix, XENServer, Storage, iscsi, Exchange, Virtual Desktops, XENDesktop, APPSense, Netscaler, Virtual Storage, VM, Unified Comminications, Cisco, Server Virtualization, Thin client, Server Based Computing, SBC, Application Delivery controllers, System Center, SCCM, SCVMM, SCOM, VMware, VSphere, Virtual Storage, Cloud Computing, Provisioning Server, Hypervisor, Client Hypervisor.
