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that host profile to other hosts in your environment for a consistent configuration. For more
information, see the vSphere Host Profiles documentation or the Setting Up a vSphere Auto
Deploy Reference Host section.
Host customization
Stores information that the user provides when host profiles are applied to the host. Host
customization might contain an IP address or other information that the user supplied for
that host. For more information about host customizations, see the vSphere Host Profiles
documentation.
Host customization was called answer file in earlier releases of vSphere Auto Deploy.
Rules and Rule Sets
You specify the behavior of the vSphere Auto Deploy server by using a set of rules. The vSphere
Auto Deploy rules engine checks the rule set for matching host patterns to decide which items
(image profile, host profile, vCenter Server location, or script object) to provision each host with.
The rules engine maps software and configuration settings to hosts based on the attributes of
the host. For example, you can deploy image profiles or host profiles to two clusters of hosts by
writing two rules, each matching on the network address of one cluster.
For hosts that have not yet been added to a vCenter Server system, the vSphere Auto Deploy
server checks with the rules engine before serving image profiles, host profiles, and inventory
location information to hosts. For hosts that are managed by a vCenter Server system, the
image profile, host profile, and inventory location that vCenter Server has stored in the host
object is used. If you make changes to rules, you can use the vSphere Client or vSphere Auto
Deploy cmdlets in a PowerCLI session to test and repair rule compliance. When you repair rule
compliance for a host, that host's image profile and host profile assignments are updated.
The rules engine includes rules and rule sets.
Rules
Rules can assign image profiles and host profiles to a set of hosts, or specify the location
(folder or cluster) of a host on the target vCenter Server system. A rule can identify target
hosts by boot MAC address, SMBIOS information, BIOS UUID, Vendor, Model, or fixed DHCP
IP address. In most cases, rules apply to multiple hosts. You create rules by using the vSphere
Client or vSphere Auto Deploy cmdlets in a PowerCLI session. After you create a rule, you
must add it to a rule set. Only two rule sets, the active rule set and the working rule set, are
supported. A rule can belong to both sets, the default, or only to the working rule set. After
you add a rule to a rule set, you can no longer change the rule. Instead, you copy the rule
and replace items or patterns in the copy. If you are managing vSphere Auto Deploy with the
vSphere Client, you can edit a rule if it is in inactive state.
You can specify the following parameters in a rule.
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