vSphere Auto Deploy in homelab – Part2

Auto deploy configuration

In order to provision servers there are few configuration steps which one has to perform. From vSphere client Home screen solution and Applications –> VMware Auto Deploy one can see couple of configuration tab, whole auto deploy configuration is organized in these tabs.

• Add official VMware repository, From right click menu in Software Depot:
  • Add VMware Depot
  • add HA depot – necessary to have HA package installed on ESXi host
  • add ZIP repository – if you have custom ESXi package installed (vCD agent, HP openview etc)

add HA depot in auto deploy

• Switch to image profile tab, right click on profile and Clone it, you can’t modify or edit default profiles. We will create image with HA. Clone standard image and follow clone wizard

Clone ESXi profile

• Find new profile and add software package into profile. To have HA  capability one has to add vmware-fdm package. Fault Domain Manager

• Next step is to deploy rule which will define conditions under server can access software depot:
  • name a rule
  • choose profile which you’ve created in previous steps
  • specify vCenter server, DC or cluster
  • host profiles if you have, if not – skip this point
  • rule set – these are conditions such as vendor, IP, MAC and others
  

  auto deploy ruleset

• If you don’t know how server is identify, boot server from network, open console and wait until its wait for software depot

server identification

• Activate Rule
• Boot ESXi from network, server should received software image and automatically gets connected to cluster or DC associated with Rule set.

ESXi during auto deploy provisioning

• Create Host profile from first host
• Clone existing Rule Set and specify new host profile and assign rule to vCenter server folder.
• Activate Rule Set
• Deploy rule compliance – in  the Hosts tab, host esx01.lab.local should be visible, from right click menu choose Test deploy rule compliance, if host is not compliant use  repair Deploy Rule Set

compliance rule set

• To make deployment process easier and faster create Host Profile Answer Template
  • provide IP address for the first host in a pool
  • number of node in pool

Every new servers will receive image from auto deploy server and configuration from host profile.