7.0

Using Custom Properties 1
You use custom properties to control aspects of the machines that users can provision.
Some properties are determined by standard settings that you must specify for all machines. For
example, memory and disk size values are required for all blueprints. You can specify additional
properties individually or in property groups in blueprints and in reservations. Use custom properties to
add values or override existing or default values for the following information.
n
Machine operating system
n
Virtualization platform
n
Build settings such as disk size
n
Integration with an external system
When you add a property to a blueprint or a property group, you can mark it as a required property. When
a property is specified as required, the user must provide a value for that property when they request a
machine, such as in the following examples.
n
Require information about multiple disks sharing the machine’s allocated storage.
n
Require information about users or groups to be added to a local group on the machine.
n
Require the host name of the machine.
The Windows guest agent records property values on the provisioned machine in the %SystemDrive
%\VRMGuestAgent\site\workitem.xml file.
The Linux guest agent records property values on the provisioned machine in
the /usr/share/gugent/site/workitem.xml file.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
Adding Custom Properties
n
Using Properties in Machine Provisioning
n
Understanding Custom Properties Precedence
Adding Custom Properties
You can use custom properties to control machine provisioning. You can add properties and property
groups to overall blueprints, components in a blueprint, and reservations.
VMware, Inc.
7