Running an Unattended Install

The unattended install feature allows running the deployment scenarios from the command line, and specify the configuration parameters through the command line and an XML file. The deployment progress and errors will be output to both the console and the log file. The wizards will abort in case if an error is encountered during the deployment.

The following scenarios of unattended deployment are supported.

Task Parameter

Outputs help to file log.txt

 DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe --help

Outputs wizard’s version to file log.txt

 DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe --version
Outputs help for a specific command to file log.txt

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe <command_name>

Example: DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe deploy

Command line:

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe deploy --credential username/password Password --dcsadminpassword Password --file "config/deploy.xml" --winver Server2019

Command Definition

-c, --credential

Username and password

-p, --dcsadminpassword

Required. DcsAdmin password
-s, --nssuppress

Do not produce a warning if the virtual machine name check with nslookup returns the positive result
(Default: false)

-f, --file Required. Configuration XML file path
-w, --winver

Windows version of the ISO image to be used. Supported values: Server2016, Server2019
(Default: Server2016)

Example Configuration File

For a sample configuration file, see deploy.xml.

The Language/ Region Tag displayed in the following table is the expected value that should be used for the LanguagePackTag keyword in the XML.

Language/ Region Language/ Region Tag
Chinese (Simplified, China) zh-CN
English (United States) en-US
French (France) fr-FR
German (Germany) de-DE
Italian (Italy) it-IT
Japanese (Japan) ja-JP
Spanish (Spain) es-ES

Command line:

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe addnode --credential username/password Password --dcsadminpassword Password --file config/addnode.xml

Command Definition

-c, --credential

Username and password

-p, --dcsadminpassword

Required. DcsAdmin password
-s, --nssuppress Do not produce a warning if the virtual machine name check with nslookup returns the positive result
(Default: false)
-f, --file Required. Configuration XML file path
-w, --winver Windows version of the ISO image to be used. Supported values: Server2016, Server2019
(Default: Server2016)

Example Configuration File

For a sample configuration file, see addnode.xml.

Command line:

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe update -servername -c administrator Password -p Password

Command Definition

-a, --address

Required. DataCore server name or IP address

-c, --credential

Username and password
-p, --dcsadminpassword Required. DcsAdmin password
-h, --waithostsdelay Time in seconds to wait until hosts' recovery.
(Default: 300)
-v, --waitvirtualdisksdelay

Maximal time in seconds to wait until mirrored virtual disks become healthy
(Default: 300)

Command line:

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe download -w <WindowsVersion>

Command Definition

-w, --winver

(Default: Server2016) Download ISO images with the specified Windows Version.

Supported values: Server2016|Server2019|Server2022|All

Example

DataCore.SmartDeployment.HypervWizard.exe download -w Server2016

Using the XML configuration file, it is possible to specify parameters for a new virtual disk to be created and served to the hypervisor hosts during the deployment of a new Hyperconverged Infrastructure, either in the unattended or in the interactive mode. The parameters cannot be specified in GUI.

XML example

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<HypervXmlConfigurationTemplate xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" DataSourceType="BunchOfHosts" Scenario="HvsanDeployment" EnableMpio="true">

...

<VirtualDisk Create="true" Format="true" Name="Virtual Disk 1" SizeGB="100" />

...

</HypervXmlConfigurationTemplate>

Notes

  • Supported only in New Deployment scenario.
  • Parameters of new virtual disk are specified in node <VirtualDisk>.
  • VirtualDisk node is optional and overrides values specified in app.config file.
  • If VirtualDisk node is not specified, then DataCore Installation Manager for Hyper-V uses app.config settings.
  • Default settings are:

    <setting name="CreateVirtualDisk" serializeAs="String">

    <value>False</value>

    </setting>

    <setting name="FormatVirtualDisk" serializeAs="String">

    <value>False</value>

    </setting>

    <setting name="VirtualDiskName" serializeAs="String">

    <value />

    </setting>

    <setting name="VirtualDiskSizeGB" serializeAs="String">

    <value>100</value>

    </setting>

  • If the VirtualDiskName is empty, use the default name, “Smart Deployment Virtual Disk”.
  • The virtual disk is mirrored. The file system is NTFS. DataCore Installation Manager for Hyper-V uses random hosts in the server group (no more than three) to create a mirror disk. For disk partition, MBR for disks with size up to 2TB, and GPT if it is larger than 2 TB is used.
  • DataCore Installation Manager for Hyper-V optionally initializes and formats served disk on one of the root hosts (chosen at random).

    Locking mechanisms should be provided by the service that will consume the disk, for example Windows Failover Clustering Services.

  • DataCore Installation Manager for Hyper-V does not stop the deployment in a case of errors during creation of the virtual disk.