The Definitive Guide to Installing ESXi using iPXE...

[robinsmidsrod]

That was very complicated. Maybe ESXi 5.0 has come a long way from 4.x, but I only do like this:

Code:

#!ipxe

echo
echo Booting VMware 64-bit installer for ${hostname} from SAN
set root-path iscsi:nas.smidsrod.lan::::iqn.2011-02.lan.smidsrod:${hostname}.boot.vmware
sanhook ${root-path} || goto failed
initrd http://server.smidsrod.lan/tftp/vmware/esxi-5.0-x64.iso
chain http://server.smidsrod.lan/tftp/memdisk iso || goto failed

:failed
echo Boot from ${root-path} failed, dropping to shell
shell

Of course, I don't have a kickstart file, which means I have to manually fill in configuration stuff, but the iSCSI volume is detected without effort.