VMware install ISO on USB

links_vsphere

http://www.tinkertry.com/rufus-lets-you-quickly-and-easily-reformat-an-esxi-usb-flash-drive-back-to-full-capacity/

http://rufus.akeo.ie/

http://www.tinkertry.com/download-vsphere-5-lab/

vsphere_hypervisor_usb.txt

# partition a single msdos partition and make it active:
 
$ cat /tmp/sdb.save
# partition table of /dev/sdb
unit: sectors
 
/dev/sdb1 : start= 2048, size= 30272704, Id= c, bootable
/dev/sdb2 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sdb3 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
/dev/sdb4 : start= 0, size= 0, Id= 0
 
# format with FAT32
 
/sbin/mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n USB /dev/sdb1
 
# get a compatible version of syslinux (v4.x won't work)
 
mkdir syslinux
cd syslinux/
wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/3.xx/syslinux-3.86.tar.gz
tar zxvfp syslinux-3.86.tar.gz
cd syslinux-3.86
yum -y install nasm
make
 
# add syslinux mbr
 
~/syslinux/syslinux-3.86/linux/syslinux /dev/sdb1
cat ~/syslinux/syslinux-3.86/mbr/mbr.bin > /dev/sdb
 
# mount iso and usb
 
mkdir /tmp/usb
mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp/usb
 
mkdir /tmp/iso
mount -o loop /mnt/hgfs/sjj/Downloads/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.5.0.update02-2068190.x86_64.iso /tmp/iso
 
# Copy iso image to usb
 
cp -r /tmp/iso/* /tmp/usb
mv /tmp/usb/isolinux.cfg /tmp/usb/syslinux.cfg
sed -i 's/^\(.*APPEND -c boot.cfg\)/\1 -p 1/' /tmp/usb/syslinux.cfg
 
umount /tmp/usb
umount /tmp/iso 

For anyone wondering this is still the correct process as of esxi 6.7 as seen here - I don't know why that guide mentions syslinux 6 as you clearly require version 3.86.

I would add that there is no reason to call apt install nasm, or yum install nasm, or make because the tar.gz already contains compiled binaries.