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Table Of Contents
CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance
You can use the CLI installer to perform a silent deployment of a vCenter Server appliance on an
ESXi host or vCenter Server instance.
The CLI deployment process includes downloading the vCenter Server installer on a network
virtual machine or physical server from which you want to perform the deployment, preparing a
JSON configuration file with the deployment information, and running the deployment command.
You can also watch the video about how to install the vCenter Server appliance by using the CLI
installer.
(vCenter Server Command Line Installation)
Prepare Your JSON Configuration File for CLI Deployment
Before you run the CLI installer to deploy a vCenter Server appliance, you must prepare a JSON
file with configuration parameters and their values for your deployment specification.
The vCenter Server installer contains JSON templates for all deployment options. For information
about the templates, see JSON Templates for CLI Deployment of the vCenter Server Appliance.
You can deploy an appliance with minimum configurations by setting values to the configuration
parameters in the JSON template for your specification. You can edit the preset values, remove
configuration parameters, and add configuration parameters for custom configurations.
For a complete list of the configuration parameters and their descriptions, navigate to the installer
subdirectory for your operating system and run the vcsa-deploy install --template-help
command or see Deployment Configuration Parameters.
Prerequisites
n You must be familiar with the JSON syntax.
n Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer.
Procedure
1 In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the vcsa-cli-installer directory, and open the
templates subfolder.
2 Copy the deployment templates from the install subfolder to your workspace.
Important The path to the JSON configuration files must contain only ASCII characters.
Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.
3 In a text editor, open the template file for your specification.
To ensure the correct syntax of your JSON configuration file, use a JSON editor.
vCenter Server Installation and Setup
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