After creating a host profile from a reference host, you can create a rule that applies the previously verified image profile and the host profile that you extracted to target hosts from a specific IP range.

Procedure

  1. Log in with administrator privileges to the console of the Windows system on which vCenter Server is installed, either directly or by using RDP.
  2. In a PowerCLI session, run the Connect-VIServer cmdlet to connect to the vCenter Server system that vSphere Auto Deploy is registered with. 
    Connect-VIServer ipv4_address
    The cmdlet might return a server certificate warning. In a production environment, make sure no server certificate issues occur. In a development environment, you can ignore the warning.
  3. Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot to add the online depot to the PowerCLI session. 
    Add-EsxSoftwareDepot https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

    Adding the software depot is required each time you start a new PowerCLI session.

  4. (Required) Display the rules in the active rule set by running the Get-DeployRuleset cmdlet.
  5. Create a rule that instructs vSphere Auto Deploy to provision the set of hosts from a specified IP range with the image profile that you previously selected and the host profile that you created from the reference host. 
    New-DeployRule -name "Production01Rule" -item "image_profile",ESXiGold -Pattern "ipv4=IP_range"
  6. Add the new rule to the active rule set. 
    Add-DeployRule	-DeployRule "Production01Rule"
  7. Check the active rule set by running the Get-DeployRuleset command.
    PowerCLI displays information similar to the following example. 
    Name:              Production01Rule
PatternList:       {ipv4=address_range}
ItemList:          {ESXi-version-XXXXXX-standard, Compute01, ESXiGold}

What to do next

Provision the hosts and set up the host customizations.