VMware/ESX/hexedit

We used a hexeditor to edit the (backup of the) .iso directly to pass the correct boot parameters.

Note:

• It is absolutely necessary that the size of the iso does NOT change! This means, if you add characters, you have to remove them from somewhere else!
• With the changes below, we're editing the 2nd boot entry. This means we still have to "press DOWN once, ENTER" when booting this modified .iso image!

$ grep -a -B1 -A20 'gfxboot bootlogo' ESX-4.0.0-update01-208167_text.iso | cat -v
[...]
@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@default esx-text
gfxboot bootlogo
prompt 1
#menu title ESX build 208167
timeout 300

LABEL esx
  menu default
  menu label Install ESX in grap mode
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img vmkopts=d mem=512M quiet

LABEL esx-text
  menu label Install ESX in text mode
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M text console=ttyS0,115200n8

LABEL usb-ks
  menu label ESX Scripted Install using USB ks.cfg
  kernel vmlinuz
  append initrd=initrd.img vmkopts=debugLogToSerial:1 mem=512M ks=usb quiet