7.4

Table Of Contents
Procedure
1 Scenario: Prepare Your Reference Machine for Guest Agent Customizations and Software
Components
So that your template can support software components, you install the software bootstrap agent
and its prerequisite, the guest agent, on your reference machine. The agents ensure that
vRealize Automation architects who use your template can include software components in their
blueprints.
2 Scenario: Convert Your CentOS Reference Machine into a Template
After you install the guest agent and software bootstrap agent onto your reference machine, you turn
your reference machine into a template that vRealize Automation architects can use to create clone
machine blueprints.
3 Scenario: Create a Customization Specification for vSphere Cloning
Create a customization specification for your blueprint architects to use with your
cpb_centos_63_x84 template.
You created a template and customization specification from your reference machine that blueprint
architects can use to create vRealize Automation blueprints that clone Linux CentOS machines. Because
you installed the Software bootstrap agent and the guest agent on your reference machine, architects can
use your template to create elaborate catalog item blueprints that include Software components or other
guest agent customizations such as running scripts or formatting disks. Because you installed
VMware Tools, architects and catalog administrators can allow users to perform actions against
machines, such as reconfigure, snapshot, and reboot.
What to do next
After you configure vRealize Automation users, groups, and resources, you can use your template and
customization specification to create a machine blueprint for cloning. See Installing and Configuring
vRealize Automation for the Rainpole Scenario.
Scenario: Prepare Your Reference Machine for Guest Agent Customizations
and Software Components
So that your template can support software components, you install the software bootstrap agent and its
prerequisite, the guest agent, on your reference machine. The agents ensure that vRealize Automation
architects who use your template can include software components in their blueprints.
To simplify the process, you download and run a vRealize Automation script that installs both agents,
instead of downloading and installing separate packages.
The script also connects to the Manager Service instance and downloads the SSL certificate, which
establishes trust between the Manager Service and machines deployed from the template. Note that
having the script download the certificate is less secure than manually obtaining the Manager Service
SSL certificate and installing it on your reference machine in /usr/share/gugent/cert.pem.
Configuring vRealize Automation
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