7.0

9 Set up the host you provisioned as a reference host for your host profile.
You can specify the reference host syslog settings, firewall settings, storage, networking, and
so on. See Setting Up a vSphere Auto Deploy Reference Host.
10 Create and export a host profile for the reference host.
See the Host Profiles documentation.
11 To provision multiple hosts with the host profile, use the Copy-DeployRule cmdlet to edit the
previously created rule.
You can revise the rule to assign not only an image profile but also a host profile, a vCenter
Server location, and a custom script bundle.
Copy-DeployRule -DeployRule "testrule" -ReplaceItem
my_host_profile_from_reference_host,my_target_cluster
-ReplacePattern "ipv4=192.XXX.1.10-192.XXX.1.20"
Where my_host_profile_from_reference_host is the name of the reference host profile, and
my_target_cluster is the name of the target cluster.
12 Perform the test and repair compliance operations to remediate the hosts.
See Test and Repair Rule Compliance .
13 Verify that the hosts you provisioned meet the following requirements.
n Each host is connected to the vCenter Server system.
n The hosts are not in maintenance mode.
n The hosts have no compliance failures.
n Each host with a host profile that requires user input has up-to-date host customization
information.
Remediate host associations and compliance problems and reboot hosts until all hosts meet
the requirements.
Read for an introduction to the boot process, differences between first and subsequent boots, and
an overview of using host customization.
Preparing for vSphere Auto Deploy
Before you can start using vSphere Auto Deploy, you must prepare your environment. You start
with server setup and hardware preparation. You must configure the vSphere Auto Deploy service
startup type in the vCenter Server system that you plan to use for managing the hosts you
provision, and install PowerCLI.
n Prepare Your System for vSphere Auto Deploy
Before you can PXE boot an ESXi host with vSphere Auto Deploy, you must install
prerequisite software and set up the DHCP and TFTP servers that vSphere Auto Deploy
interacts with.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
VMware, Inc. 123