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VMware vSphere 6.5 and New Image Builder GUI – Cloning a profile

By Vladan SEGET | Last Updated: December 8, 2016

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VMware worked hard to get this done. AutoDeploy fling was a long time the only GUI utility allowing manage the setup and deployment requirements in a stateless environment. Some of the features provided through the GUI included the ability to add/remove Depots, list/create/modify Image Profiles, list VIB details, create/modify rules to map hosts to Image Profiles, check compliance of hosts against these rules and remediate hosts. All this is now bundled with vSphere 6.5 and AutoDeploy GUI.

AutoDeploy and Image Profiles are working tightly together.

During the first part – VMware vSphere 6.5 and New Image builder GUI – we managed to:

  • Create a custom depot
  • Import custom drivers
  • Import VMware Offline Bundle (a ZIP file)
  • Create an Image Profile adding/removing drivers
  • Export a custom ISO from the Image profile

Today we'll follow up on this by simply cloning this image profile.

Some requirements first.

  • You should check that vSphere ESXi Image Builder service is enabled and running.

If you plan to use it on regular basis, then you should make sure that the service is set up to start automatically….

Verify that the vSphere ESXi Image Builder service is enabled and running. See Configure the vSphere ESXi Image Builder Service Startup Type. ■ Add or import a software depot to the vSphere ESXi Image Builder inventory. See Add a Software Depot and Import a Software Depot. Procedure 1 On the vSphere Web Client Home page, click Auto Deploy. By default, only the Administrator role has privileges to use the vSphere ESXi Image Builder service. 2 On the Software Depots tab, select the software depot that contains the image profile that you want to work with. 3 From the list of image profiles in the depot, select the image profile that you want to clone and click Clone. 4 Enter an image profile name, vendor, and description. You must enter a unique image profile name. 5 From the Software depot drop-down list, select in which custom depot to add the new image profile and click Next. 6 (Optional) From the drop-down list, select an acceptance level for the image profile. 7 From the Available tab, select the VIBs that you want to add to the image profile and deselect the ones that you want to remove. You can view the VIBs that will be added to the image profile from the Selected tab. You can filter the VIBs by software depot from the Software depot drop-down list on the Available tab. Note The image profile must contain a bootable ESXi image to be valid. 8 Click Next. vSphere ESXi Image Builder verifies that the change does not invalidate the profile. Some VIBs depend on other VIBs and become invalid if you include them in an image profile separately. When you add or remove a VIB, vSphere ESXi Image Builder checks whether the package dependencies are met. 9 On the Ready to complete page, review the summary information for the new image profile and click Finish.

  • Add or import a software depot to the vSphere ESXi Image Builder inventory. (we have done this in part 1).

Steps to Clone a Profile

vSphere Web Client Homepage > click Auto Deploy > Software Depots tab, select the software depot that contains the image profile that you want to work with. From the list of image profiles in the depot, select the image profile that you want to clone > Clone.

VMware Autodeploy

By clicking the Clone Icon (button) an assistant shows up. It seems that the new vSphere 6.5 has many assistants -:). And it's good !!!

The software depot called “lab” is the only depot we have created so far so there is nothing to see there.

(Note that you must specify the “vendor” otherwise the assistant reminds you to enter something in this field.)

You must enter a unique image profile name.

VMware vSphere AutoDeploy and Image Profiles

Next, we can change the acceptance level if we want to, and also add/remove packages (VIBs) from the image profile. The acceptance level is optional. The image profile must contain a bootable ESXi image to be valid.

VMware vSphere AutoDeploy and Image Profiles

vSphere ESXi Image Builder verifies that the change does not invalidate the profile. Note that if there is a dependency between VIBs, you should know that if you include them in an image profile separately, there is a check done by Image Builder. When you add or remove a VIB, vSphere ESXi Image Builder checks whether the package dependencies are met.

A third screen only recaps what we did….

VMware vSphere AutoDeploy and Image Profiles

And we got what we were “cooking” – a clone of our profile.

There can be use cases where you want to keep original or created a copy with slight modification with less VIBs (only the ones you need for your environment)….

VMware vSphere AutoDeploy and Image Profiles

What are different use cases for Image Builder?

  • Create image profiles for use by vSphere Auto Deploy which will be used then to boot your hosts via PXE.
  • Add custom third-party drivers to existing image profile and export to ISO or bundle.
  • Do an upgrade – yes you can use Image builder to create an image profile which has base VIBs and then create a custom image with custom VIBs in it.
  • Create an image which has reduced footprint – as you can take off some unnecessary VIBs, to a reduced size of the Image.

Check our Dedicated vSphere 6.5 Page here.

More new recent posts about VMware vSphere 6.5

Few different ways to upgrade ESXi:

  • How to Upgrade ESXi 6.0 to 6.5 via CLI [On Line]
  • How to Upgrade ESXi 6.0 to 6.5 via ISO
  • How to upgrade ESXi 6.0 to ESXi 6.5 via Offline Bundle
  • How to upgrade an ESXi 6.0 to ESXi 6.5 via VMware Update Manager

And also the upgrade of the vCenter:

  • How to Migrate Windows Based vCenter to VCSA 6.5 [Lab]
  • How to Migrate Windows based vCenter Server 6.0 to Windows vCenter 6.5 In-Place [LAB]

Also:

  • How to create a USB media with ESXi 6.5 Installation

Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)

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| Filed Under: Server Virtualization Tagged With: VMware vSphere 6.5 and New Image Builder GUI - Cloning a profile Leave a Comment

About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x11, Veeam Vanguard x5, VCAP-DCA/DCD, VCP, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

Connect on: Facebook. Feel free to network via Twitter @vladan.

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