6.7

Create a Rule that Provisions Hosts from a Specific IP Range
After creating a host profile from a reference host, you can create a rule that applies the previously
verified image profile and the host profile that you extracted to target hosts from a specific IP range.
Procedure
1 Log in with administrator privileges to the console of the Windows system on which vCenter Server is
installed, either directly or by using RDP.
2 In a PowerCLI session, run the Connect-VIServer cmdlet to connect to the vCenter Server system
that vSphere Auto Deploy is registered with.
Connect-VIServer ipv4_address
The cmdlet might return a server certificate warning. In a production environment, make sure no
server certificate issues occur. In a development environment, you can ignore the warning.
3 Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot to add the online depot to the PowerCLI session.
Add-EsxSoftwareDepot https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
Adding the software depot is required each time you start a new PowerCLI session.
4 Display the rules in the active rule set by running the Get-DeployRuleset cmdlet.
5 Create a rule that instructs vSphere Auto Deploy to provision the set of hosts from a specified IP
range with the image profile that you previously selected and the host profile that you created from
the reference host.
New-DeployRule -name "Production01Rule" -item "image_profile",ESXiGold -Pattern "ipv4=IP_range"
6 Add the new rule to the active rule set.
Add-DeployRule -DeployRule "Production01Rule"
7 Check the active rule set by running the Get-DeployRuleset command.
PowerCLI displays information similar to the following example.
Name: Production01Rule
PatternList: {ipv4=address_range}
ItemList: {ESXi-version-XXXXXX-standard, Compute01, ESXiGold}
What to do next
Provision the hosts and set up the host customizations.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
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