Specifications

Prerequisites
n
Create the image profile you want boot the host with. Use the Image Builder PowerCLI. See "Using
vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI" in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.
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Make sure that the setup that you performed during the first boot operation is in place.
Procedure
1 At the PowerShell prompt, run the Connect-VIServer PowerCLI cmdlet to connect to the vCenter Server
system that Auto Deploy is registered with.
Connect-VIServer myVCServer
The cmdlet might return a server certificate warning. In a production environment, make sure no server
certificate warnings result. In a development environment, you can ignore the warning.
2 Determine the location of a public software depot that contains the image profile that you want to use,
or define a custom image profile with the Image Builder PowerCLI.
3 Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot to add the software depot that contains the image profile to the PowerCLI
session.
Depot Type Cmdlet
Remote depot
Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot depot_url.
ZIP file
a Download the ZIP file to a local file path or create a mount point local
to the PowerCLI machine.
b Run
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot C:\file_path\my_offline_depot.zip.
4 Run Get-EsxImageProfile to see a list of image profiles, and decide which profile you want to use.
5 Run Copy-DeployRule and specify the ReplaceItem parameter to change the rule that assigns an image
profile to hosts.
The following cmdlet replaces the current image profile that the rule assigns to the host with the
my_new_imageprofile profile. After the cmdlet completes, myrule assigns the new image profile to hosts.
The old version of myrule is renamed and hidden.
Copy-DeployRule myrule -ReplaceItem my_new_imageprofile
6 Test and repair rule compliance for each host that you want to deploy the image to.
See “Test and Repair Rule Compliance,” on page 199.
When you reboot hosts after compliance repair, Auto Deploy provisions the hosts with the new image
profile.
Assign a Host Profile to Hosts
Auto Deploy can assign a host profile to one or more hosts. The host profile might include information
about storage configuration, network configuration, or other characteristics of the host. If you add a host to a
cluster, that cluster's host profile is used.
The following procedure explains how to write a rule that assigns a host profile to hosts. To assign the host
profiles to hosts already provisioned with Auto Deploy, you must also perform a test and repair cycle. See
“Test and Repair Rule Compliance,” on page 199.
In many cases, you assign a host to a cluster instead of specifying a host profile explicitly. The host uses the
host profile of the cluster.
vSphere Upgrade
198 VMware, Inc.