I ran into this issue, where the UEFI boot parameters are not exposed and cannot be set in the Central GUI. According to the bug report, the workaround is to set the Central boot parameters via UCS Manager once an SP uses the Global BP (which just feels wrong on so many levels, does not scale, is not persistent in UCS Central). I managed to get it working by setting the UEFI boot parameters via Central CLI.
Some comments before I start
- You probably don't need all the commit-buffers - one at the end should do.
- I am looking for a way to clone existing legacy boot mode BPs via UCS Central CLI (I have not been able to do so - if someone has a way, please share).
- Cloning a BP via UCS Central GUI seems to preserve the boot parameters (I tested this).
- I don't provide CLI instructions for creating BPs from scratch, since those are fairly well known and documented. My usage case was to clone BPs, then convert them to UEFI-enabled.
- To keep the commands and BP short, I only show instructions and output for san-image primary; path primary.
The procedure
- Manual / GUI step - clone an existing BP (I call mine $ORIG_UEFI), or create a SAN-boot BP via GUI/CLI like normal.
ucscentral# connect policy-mgr
ucscentral(policy-mgr)# scope org /
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org # scope boot-policy PURE01_R1_UEFI
# Config before setting the uefi-boot-param the SP would boot into UEFI shell only
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy # show detail expand
...
Boot SAN:
Order: 2
SAN Image:
Type: Primary
VHBA: vhba_a2
SAN Image Path:
Type: Primary
LUN: 1
WWN: 52:4A:93:78:A6:F3:75:04
...
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy # set boot-mode uefi
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy* # commit-buffer
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy # scope san
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san # scope san-image primary
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image # scope path primary
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path # create uefi-boot-param
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path/uefi-boot-param* # set bootloader-name BOOTX64.efi
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path/uefi-boot-param* # set bootloader-path \EFI\BOOT\
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path/uefi-boot-param* # set boot-description "ESXi UEFI"
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path/uefi-boot-param* # commit-buffer
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy/san/san-image/path/uefi-boot-param # exit; exit
# repeat for san-image secondary; path primary
# (optional if you have multiple paths per HBA) repeat for san-image primary; path secondary & san-image secondary; path secondary
# exit (move up) until you are in the /org/boot-policy/ context
# Config after, SP boots into UEFI shell:
ucscentral(policy-mgr) /org/boot-policy # show detail expand
...
Boot SAN:
Order: 2
SAN Image:
Type: Primary
VHBA: vhba_a2
SAN Image Path:
Type: Primary
LUN: 1
WWN: 52:4A:93:78:A6:F3:75:04
UEFI Boot Param:
Boot-loader Name: BOOTX64.efi
Boot-loader Path: EFI\BOOT
Boot Description: ESXi UEFI
...
Can someone please double-check for me if this is indeed solved, and someone from Cisco flag the bug as resolved, if it is?
