VMware VS4-ENT-PL-A - vSphere Enterprise Plus, Setup Manual

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Understanding Image Builder
You can use the vSphere
®
ESXi™ Image Builder CLI to manage software depots, image profiles, and
software packages (VIBs). Image profiles and VIBs specify the software you want to use during installation
or upgrade of an ESXi host.
Image Builder Overview
The Image Builder PowerCLI supports management of vSphere image profiles and VIBs.
You can manage VIBs and image profiles with vSphere Image Builder. VIBs are software packages, and
image profiles specify a set of software packages. See “Software Depots and Their Components,” on
page 227.
You use Image Builder cmdlets for managing the software to deploy to your ESXi hosts in several different
scenarios.
Create image profiles
for use by Auto Deploy.
Use Image Builder to create an image profile that defines the VIBs that Auto
Deploy uses to provision hosts.
Add custom third-party
drivers to existing
image profile and export
to ISO or bundle.
To add third-party driver or extension custom VIBs to your ESXi hosts, use
Image builder to clone the base image provided by VMware, add the custom
VIBs, and export to ISO or to offline bundle ZIP file.
Perform upgrades.
If you upgrade from a 4.0 or 4.1 system that includes custom extensions or
drivers, you can use Image Builder to create an image profile that includes
the vSphere 5 base VIB. You can create vSphere 5 VIBs for the custom
extensions and add those VIBs to the base VIB. Export the custom image
profile to an ISO you can install or to a ZIP that you can use with vSphere
Update Manager.
Create custom images
with reduced footprint.
Some customers require a minimal footprint image. These customers can
clone the ESXi base image profile and remove VIBs using Image Builder.
The Image Builder PowerCLI cmdlets take image profiles and VIBs as input and produce different outputs.
Input.
Image profiles and VIBs that are located in a software depot are used as
input to PowerCLI cmdlets running on a Windows client.
Output.
PowerCLI cmdlets create custom image profiles that can be exported to ISO
or an offline depot ZIP file. ISO images are used for installation. The ZIP
depot can be used by vSphere Update Manager or by
esxcli software
commands to update or install images. Image profiles are also used in
vSphere Auto Deploy rules to specify the software to provision ESXi hosts
with.
vSphere Installation and Setup
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