You can use the VMware 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.
vSphere ESXi Image Builder Overview vSphere ESXi Image Builder lets you manage vSphere image profiles and VIBs.
Software Depots and Their Components Understanding how depots, profiles, and VIBs are structured and where you can use them is a prerequisite for in-memory installation of a custom ESXi ISO, for provisioning ESXi hosts using vSphere Auto Deploy, and for certain custom upgrade operations.
vSphere ESXi Image Builder Cmdlets Overview vSphere ESXi Image Builder cmdlets allow you to manage image profiles and VIBs.
Image Profiles Image profiles define the set of VIBs that an ESXi installation or update process uses. Image profiles apply to hosts provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy and to other ESXi 5.x hosts. You define and manipulate image profiles with vSphere ESXi Image Builder.
Acceptance Levels Each VIB is released with an acceptance level that cannot be changed. The host acceptance level determines which VIBs can be installed to a host. You can change the host acceptance levels with esxcli commands.
Structure of ImageProfile, SoftwarePackage, and ImageProfileDiff Objects Knowing the structure of ImageProfile , SoftwarePackage , and ImageProfileDiff objects helps you manage deployment and upgrade processes.