ESXi 5.0 Dealing with Auto Deploy and Image Profiles.

Handling of Image Profiles is done via the PowerCLi interface. First off to fetch the latest Image Profiles listing by adding VMware's depot. Add-EsxSoftwareDepot -DepotUrl https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml List all available bundles Get-EsxImageProfile | Format-Table -AutoSize Piping Get-EsxImageProfile through Format-Table gives you the full name of the image. To fetch an image to export it locally Export-EsxImageProfile "ImageProfileNamefromListAbove" -FilePath D:\ESXiDepot\Bundle\ImageProfileNamefromListAbove.zip -ExportToBundle or to export to a bootable ISO Export-EsxImageProfile "ImageProfileNamefromListAbove" -FilePath D:\ESXiDepot\ISOe\ImageProfileNamefromListAbove.iso -ExportToIso Now we have the bundles we select the bundle we want Add-EsxSoftwareDepot D:\ESXiDepot\Bundle\ImageProfileNamefromListAbove.zip Because the bundle has come from VMWare it will be a read only bundle. We clone the one we need and embedded the HA Agent in it. Add-EsxSoftwareDepot http://your.vcenter.server.address:80/vSphere-HA-depot New-EsxImageProfile -CloneProfile ImageProfileNamefromListAbove -name "NewImageProfileName" Add-EsxSoftwarePackage -ImageProfile “NewImageProfileName” -SoftwarePackage vmware-fdm Remove-DeployRule -DeployRule ProductionBootRule -delete PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> New-DeployRule -Name ProductionBootRule -Item EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-2012120 2001-standard,em-vs-00,EMCloud -Pattern "mac=00:30:48:f1:5d:1a" Add-DeployRule -DeployRule ProductionBootRule PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> Export-EsxImageProfile EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-20121202001-standard -FilePath d:\vmware\depot\EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-20121202001-standard.zip -ExportToBundle PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> Test-DeployRuleSetCompliance 103.29.172.71 VMHost ItemList ------ -------- 103.29.172.71 {Non-compliant: EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-469512-standard ... PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> Test-DeployRuleSetCompliance 103.29.172.71 | Format-Table -AutoSize VMHost ItemList ------ -------- 103.29.172.71 {Non-compliant: EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-469512-standard != EMA-ESXi-5.0.0-20121202001-standard} PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI> Test-DeployRuleSetCompliance 103.29.172.71 | Repair-DeployRuleSetCom pliance PowerCLI D:\VMware\Infrastructure\vSphere PowerCLI>


VMWare ESXi 5.0 cannot set Syslog.global.logDir

This one stumped me for a little bit. It's all to do with the path of you VMFS. You can't use the system path for example. Say I wish to store the logs on pwd output: /vmfs/volumes/07-iSCSI/logging/esxihost00 /vmfs/volumes/4ddcdc06-2ec1019a-2e4c-003048f15d1a/logging/esxihost00 # You should enter this as: [07-iSCSI] logging/esxihost00 In the Syslog.global.logDir in the advanced Settings. An alternative is to set the path via the ssh shell which does the correct translation for you. esxcli system syslog config set --logdir=/vmfs/volumes/07-iSCSI/logging/esxihost00