You examine and define an image profile using the image builder powercli. Im writing this post not only to explain how easy it is to create a customized esxi installation image for your whitebox server with this script, but also to convince the last nonbelievers that it works much better. Vmware vsphere hypervisor esxi offline bundle contains vib packages, and image profiles for esxi, including vmware tools. Official vcenter api is used, no esxi host modification is required. In this example well show how to integrate the driver for realtek network adapter into the vmware esxi image. Image builder powercli cmdlets allow you to manage image profiles and vibs. Home vmtn automation tools vmware powercli discussions. First of all you need to download the vmware offline bundle for this configuration and im using vsphere 5.
Install image builder powercli and prerequisite software before you can run image builder cmdlets, you must install vsphere powercli and all prerequisite software. Custom esxi iso with image builder powercli cmdlets. Download the latest powercli installer from the download page on the vmware website. Vmware vsphere 5 using image builder to create custom. Before i show you how to customize esxi image using image builder, lets. Challenge a custom iso for lenovo servers with latest esxi patches was needed. Use powercli commands to start with a base image profile. Posted by fgrehl on march 16, 2015 leave a comment 107. When creating a custom esxi image through image builder, we need to start by downloading the required files. But to master this technology, its not a easy task.
Install image builder powercli and prerequisite software. Use the image profiles and the vib packages with vmware image builder and vmware auto deploy to create custom image iso generation for esxi deployments. Next vsphere esxi image builder verifies the change we made. Workflows do not represent actual tasks, but illustrate how you might explore. Mylibrary before you can run vsphere esxi image builder cmdlets, you must install powercli and all prerequisite. Complete the following steps prior to beginning your evaluation of image builder 5. It uses native vsphere api, and creates virtual machines remotely. Image builder cli is a set of powercli cmdlets that you can use to manage vsphere image profiles and vib vmware installation bundle packages, such as driver vibs and update vibs. Contribute to vmwarepowercli examplescripts development by creating an account on github.
Image profile a logical container representing an esxi image ultimately consisting of a base and other vibs. How to build a customized esxi installation image for your. The image builder snapin is included with the powercli installation. When you want to customize the vmware esxi 5 installation media you need to use image builder.
To customize esxi images vmware recommends using official tool vsphere esxi image builder. Use addesxsoftwaredepot powercli commands to add the hpe valueadd and hpe and 3rd party drivers to the profile. This is best if you have an existing vmware vm you want to use as the source. How to build your awesome virtualization home lab with vmware vsphere 6. Once you understand how to put all the bits and pieces image builder, host profiles and autodeploy together, than you can make your super homelab run even more sexy with autodeployed esxi hosts now even with vmware tools for nested esxi built in. Hpe provides customized esxi images that allow you to install esxi on hpe proliant servers. I rarely even hear this feature come up unless im involved with an auto deploy design. Create custom vsphere esxi iso with vmware vsphere. So, we need to build a custom image to use with vsphere update manager and i quickly found an alternative with the vsphere esxi image builder cli. But is it very specific and requires vcenter server appliance vcsa. Image builder makes it easy to manage vsphere auto deploy images.
An image profile always includes a base vib, and might include additional vibs. The same process can be used for other vendor images and esxi versions by downloading the appropriate images, however the custom image we create may not be supported, and therefore may not be appropriate for production environments. The alternative is to install the basic esxi and update each host individually at a later stage using update manager or manually. The steps below assume auto deploy and image builder are already setup. Build your own custom esxi image vmware image builder compliant hpe bundles and thirdparty drivers included in the hpe. Download des update image in diesem fall ein fur dell hardware passendes image. Technical marketing architect, vmware ive had several requests for a brief tutorial on using the vsphere esxi image builder cli. Using the vsphere esxi image builder cli vmware blogs.
For this case i used vsphere powercli image builder cmdlets to build a customized images with vem, ibm cim providers and updated drivers from the vmware site which are also included in the ibm customized image. Using hpe custom esxi images to install esxi on hpe. Now, lets look into the process of creating a custom esxi image using vmware powercli. Powercli examplescripts scripts esxi image comparator. To do this, rightclick the vmware vsphere powercli icon after installation and select run as administrator. Customizing installations with vsphere esxi image builder.
Install vsphere powercli download and install vsphere 5. It was a good opportunity to experiment with powercli image builder with these two requirements. Vib this is the software packaging format used by vmware and 3 rd party providers that write software for esxi. Vmware esxi image builder powercli notes vtechdummies. Using vsphere esxi image builder with powercli cmdlets the vsphere esxi image builder cmdlets allow you to manipulate software depots, image profiles, and vibs. Since quite a while there is a much better way to build customized esxi images, and that is my esxi customizerps powercli script. How to customize an esxi image using vmware image builder.
You can also use image builder cmdlets to export an image profile. The ability to custom bake in partner software packages into your own iso image. Download a copy of the esxi offline bundle depot and async driver zip file. Custom nsxt image profile using image builder ui if powercli is not your cup of beer and you are running at least vsphere 6. Step 1 download both an esxi and nsxt offline bundle to your local desktop. Image builder makes it easy to manage vsphere auto deploy. Vmware vsphere esxi image builder hasnt been covered yet on my blog. Vmwares image builder powercli cmdlets provide a method of taking a stock esxi image and performing such tasks, resulting in a customised iso thats ready for deployment, hopefully saving time when building up a new esxi server. After that, set the execution policy using the following command. Install vsphere esxi image builder and prerequisite software. Install vsphere esxi image builder and prerequisite. This article will walk you through the basic steps on adding two of the more common vibs and extensions ciscos n1kv vem and emcs powerpath ve to a baseline image for later. Now just because i find powercli easy to use and a great product it doesnt mean the next person will.
The vsphere esxi image builder snapin is included with the powercli installation. Deploying nsxt vibs andor creating custom nsxt image. Vmware vsphere esxi image builder is a component of vmware vsphere powercli 5. Posted by fgrehl on april 26, 2015 leave a comment 11 go. Anyone who has attempted to make use of the new vmware vsphere esxi image builder cli understands just how complex it can get.
Create custom vsphere esxi iso with vmware vsphere esxi image builder in this tutorial i will be building a custom vmware iso image that includes vmware vsphere 5. At the downloads page, using the search field to look up vmware powercli and download vmware powercli 6. Download the latest powercli installer from the download. If there is any error, you can correct that by adding or removing dependency packages or conflicting ones. Verify the image profile was added to the repository. Vmwares image builder powercli cmdlets provide a method of. If you are using vsphere auto deploy in your vmware environment you need to have this image builder and host profile for the auto deploy configuration. Vmware powercli is a commandline and scripting tool built on windows powershell, and provides more than 700 cmdlets for managing and automating vsphere, vcloud director, vrealize operations manager, vsan, nsxt, vmware cloud services, vmware cloud on aws, vmware hcx, vmware site recovery manager, and vmware horizon environments. Before moving, let me go over the various components we will be working with while using image builder. Our depot image from vmware containing our vib is contained within c. Sometimes we need to upgrade our esxi hosts with installed 3rd vsphere installation bundle vibs.
If you want to manage vsphere esxi image builder with powercli cmdlets, verify that microsoft. Vib depot images can be downloaded from the vmware website as part of the vsphere downloads or created by you with image builder. Image builder can upload vmware software and partner software components into the system or download them directly from the vmware software depot. Configuring vsphere image builder and auto deploy vmware vsphere auto deploy is a cool feature introduced in vmware vsphere 5. So, today in the lab how to create a custom esxi 6. Mit vsphere powercli image builder ein angepasstes boot image. Custom esxi iso with image builder powercli cmdlets hakabo. Preparing an esxi image builder cli environment vmware. Esxi customizerps is a powershell script that greatly simplifies and automates the process of creating fully patched and customized esxi 5. As an additional benefit, you can feed the artifact of this builder back into packer to iterate on a machine.
Image builder powercli cmdlets allow you to manage image. I hope this post will help people better understand the power of the image builder cli and how easy it is create and maintain custom esxi installation images. Compareesximageprofileplus and mergeesximageprofile. Image builder and auto deploy powerpack september 15, 2011 alan 8 comments recently with vsphere 5 vmware enabled you to deploy the esxi image via pxe boot to your hosts, to do this you need some powercli knowledge. Required powercli script for esxi host performance. Previous versions of vsphere only allowed administrators to use powercli to use image builder and auto deploy. Recently with vsphere 5 vmware enabled you to deploy the esxi image via pxe boot to your hosts, to do this you need some powercli knowledge. The esxi image builder cli is a set of powercli cmdlets that you can use to manage vsphere image profiles and vib packages, such as driver vibs and update vibs. First i created a folder for all the offline bundles and the most recent vmware esxi offline bundle.
Powercli image builder experiments the crazy consultant. Vmware vsphere esxi image builder allows also to build custom images, so you can add an additional drivers into it. Esxi image builder seems to be one of those unsung heroes that can really make life easier but rarely gets the spotlight. If you are new to powercli, read the powercli documentation use image builder cmdlets and other powercli cmdlets and powershell cmdlets to manage image profiles and vibs.
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