When I finished my article about auto deploy I figured it was really lengthy and wanted to write down the bare minimum which can be used as a quick cheat sheet when setting up auto-deploy. Of course you will need to install vCenter, PowerCLI, Auto-Deploy and TFTP first, but I am guessing most of you will know how to do that. Here’s what you will need to do when you have all of the requirements up and running:
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot c:\tmp\VMware-Esxi-5.0.0-<buildnumber>-depot.zip
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot http://<vcenter server>/vSphere-HA-depot
New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile "ESXi-5.0.0-<buildnumber>-standard" -name "ESXiStatelessImage"
Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile "ESXiStatelessImage" -SoftwarePackage vmware-fdm
New-DeployRule -Name "FirstBoot" -Item "ESXiStatelessImage" -AllHosts
Add-DeployRule -DeployRule "FirstBoot"
- Boot one of the hosts
- Configure the host
- Create Host Profile based on “first host” named “ESXiHostProfile”
New-DeployRule -name "ProductionBoot" -item "ESXiStatelessImage", ESXiHostProfile, <target_cluster> -Pattern "vendor=<unique hw identifier>"
Add-DeployRule -DeployRule "ProductionBoot"
Remove-DeployRule -DeployRule FirstBoot -delete
- Boot all hosts
- Assign Host Profiles to all hosts
- Provide the “user input” aka create an Answer File per host
- Reboot hosts –> done
- Before you leave your PowerCLI session make sure you save your newly create image profile as a Software Depot so you can make changes later if and when needed! Otherwise the data will be saved in your image profile cache but you will not be able to make changes!
Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile "ESXiStatelessImage" -ExportToBundle -FilePath c:\tmp\ESXiStatelessImage.zip
That seems a bit more simplistic than my previous post doesn’t it.
** update: added step 17 **
Justin says
Step 3: It should read “ESXi-5.0.0-…” instead of “Esxi-5.0.0-…”
gray says
I thought I read in the VMware Auto Deploy Administrator’s Guide that PXE boot hosts (i.e., auto deploy) do not support resource pools. Is this correct? Would seem like a fairly important limitation.
T.J. Albrecht says
They don’t support them locally anymore. It is now a function of vCenter:
http://communities.vmware.com/message/1827806
Specifically to allow Auto-Deployed ESXi hosts to use them 🙂