Reprovision a Host with a New Image Profile by Using PowerCLI

You can use vSphere Auto Deploy to reprovision a host with a new image profile in a PowerCLI session by changing the rule for the host and performing a test and repair compliance operation.

Several options for reprovisioning hosts exist.

If the VIBs that you want to use support live update, you can use an esxcli software vib command. In that case, you must also update the rule set to use an image profile that includes the new VIBs.
During testing, you can apply an image profile to an individual host with the Apply-EsxImageProfile cmdlet and reboot the host so the change takes effect. The Apply-EsxImageProfile cmdlet updates the association between the host and the image profile but does not install VIBs on the host.
In all other cases, use this procedure.

Prerequisites

Verify that the image profile you want to use to reprovision the host is available. Use vSphere ESXi Image Builder in a PowerCLI session. See "Using vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI" in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.
Verify that the setup you performed during the first boot operation is in place.

Procedure

At the PowerShell prompt, run the Connect-VIServer PowerCLI cmdlet to connect to the vCenter Server system that vSphere Auto Deploy is registered with.
```
Connect-VIServer ipv4_or_ipv6_address
```
The cmdlet might return a server certificate warning. In a production environment, make sure no server certificate warnings result. In a development environment, you can ignore the warning.
Determine the location of a public software depot that contains the image profile that you want to use, or define a custom image profile with vSphere ESXi Image Builder.

Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot to add the software depot that contains the image profile to the PowerCLI session.

Depot Type	Cmdlet
Remote depot	Run `Add-EsxSoftwareDepot depot_url`.
ZIP file	Download the ZIP file to a local file path or create a mount point local to the PowerCLI machine. Run `Add-EsxSoftwareDepot C:\file_path\my_offline_depot.zip`.

Run Get-EsxImageProfile to see a list of image profiles, and decide which profile you want to use.
Run Copy-DeployRule and specify the ReplaceItem parameter to change the rule that assigns an image profile to hosts.
The following cmdlet replaces the current image profile that the rule assigns to the host with the my_new_imageprofile profile. After the cmdlet completes, myrule assigns the new image profile to hosts. The old version of myrule is renamed and hidden.
```
Copy-DeployRule myrule -ReplaceItem my_new_imageprofile
```
Test the rule compliance for each host that you want to deploy the image to.
1. Verify that you can access the host for which you want to test rule set compliance.
```
Get-VMHost -Name ESXi_hostname
```
2. Run the cmdlet that tests rule set compliance for the host, and bind the return value to a variable for later use.
```
$tr = Test-DeployRuleSetCompliance ESXi_hostname
```
3. Examine the differences between the contents of the rule set and configuration of the host.
```
$tr.itemlist
```
  The system returns a table of current and expected items if the host for which you want to test the new rule set compliance is compliant with the active rule set.
```
CurrentItem                             ExpectedItem
-----------                             ------------   
my_old_imageprofile                           my_new_imageprofile
```
4. Remediate the host to use the revised rule set the next time you boot the host.
```
Repair-DeployRuleSetCompliance $tr
```
Reboot the host to provision it with the new image profile.