6.5.1

Create a Customization Specification for Linux
Use the Guest Customization wizard to save guest operating system settings in a specification that you
can apply when cloning virtual machines or deploying from templates.
Prerequisites
Ensure that all requirements for customization are met. See Guest Operating System Customization
Requirements.
Procedure
1 From the vSphere Web Client Home inventory page, select Policies and Profiles > Customization
Specification Manager.
2 Click the Create a New specification icon.
3 Select Linux from the Target VM Operating System drop-down menu, and enter a name and
description for the specification.
4 Enter the guest operating system's computer name.
The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called
the host name.
Option Action
Enter a name a Type a name.
The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-) character.
It cannot contain periods (.) or blank spaces and cannot be made up of digits
only. Names are not case-sensitive.
b (Optional) To ensure that the name is unique, select Append a numeric
value to ensure uniqueness. This action appends a hyphen followed by a
numeric value to the virtual machine name. The name is truncated if it
exceeds 63 characters when combined with the numeric value.
Use the virtual machine name The computer name that vCenter Server creates is identical to the name of the
virtual machine on which the guest operating system is running. If the name
exceeds 63 characters, it is truncated.
Enter a name in the Clone/Deploy
wizard
The vSphere Web Client prompts you to enter a name after the cloning or
deployment is complete.
Generate a name using the custom
application configured with vCenter
Server
Enter a parameter that can be passed to the custom application.
5 Enter the Domain Name for the computer and click Next.
6 Select the time zone for the virtual machine and click Next.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
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