6.5.1

7 (Optional) If you select Enable stateful installs on the host, specify information about the disk to
use.
Option Description
Arguments for first disk By default, the system attempts to replace an existing ESXi installation, and then
attempts to write to the local disk.
You can use the Arguments for first disk field to specify a comma-separated list
of disks to use, in order of preference. You can specify more than one disk. Use
esx for the first disk with ESX installed on it, use model and vendor information,
or specify the name of the vmkernel device driver. For example, to have the
system first look for a disk with the model name ST3120814A, second for any
disk that uses the mptsas driver, and third for the local disk, specify
ST3120814A,mptsas,local as the value of this field.
The first disk setting in the host profile specifies the search order for determining
which disk to use for the cache. The search order is specified as a comma
delimited list of values. The default setting localesx,local specifies that
vSphere Auto Deploy should first look for an existing local cache disk. The cache
disk is identified as a disk with an existing ESXi software image. If vSphere Auto
Deploy cannot find an existing cache disk, it searches for an available local disk
device. When searching for an available disk vSphere Auto Deploy uses the first
empty disk that does not have an existing VMFS partition.
You can use the first disk argument only to specify the search order. You cannot
explicitly specify a disk. For example, you cannot specify a specific LUN on a
SAN.
Check to overwrite any VMFS volumes
on the selected disk
If you select this check box, the system overwrites existing VMFS volumes if not
enough space is available to store the image, image profile, and host profile.
Check to ignore any SSD devices
connected to the host
If you select this check box , the system ignores any existing SSD devices and
does not store image profiles and host profiles on them.
8 Click Finish to complete the host profile configuration.
What to do next
Apply the host profile to individual hosts by using the host profiles feature in the vSphere Web Client. See
the Host Profiles documentation. Alternatively, you can create a rule to assign the host profile to hosts
with the vSphere Web Client or by using PowerCLI. See Write a Rule and Assign a Host Profile to Hosts.
n
Create a rule that applies the host profile to all hosts that you want to provision with the settings
specified in the reference host. For writing a rule in a PowerCLI session, see Write a Rule and Assign
a Host Profile to Hosts.
n
For hosts that are already provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy, perform the test and repair
compliance operations in a PowerCLI session, see Test and Repair Rule Compliance.
n
Power on unprovisioned hosts to provision them with the new host profile.
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