Clone an Image Profile

You can use the vSphere Web Client to clone image profiles. You can clone an image profile when you want to make small changes to the VIB list in a profile, or if you want to use hosts from different vendors and want to use the same basic profile, but want to add vendor-specific VIBs.

The acceptance level of the VIBs you add to the base image must be at least as high as the level of the base image. If you add a VIB with a lower acceptance level to the image profile, you must lower the image profile acceptance level. For more information, see Working with Acceptance Levels.

Prerequisites

• 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.

What to do next

• You can associate an image profile with a new vSphere Auto Deploy rule to provision ESXi hosts. See Create a Deploy Rule or Clone a Deploy Rule.
• You can associate an image profile with an ESXi host. See Add a Host to the vSphere Auto Deploy Inventory.
• Edit the Image Profile Association of a Host.