Create a Deploy Rule

Before you provision ESXi hosts with vSphere Auto Deploy, you must create rules that assign host locations, image profiles, and host profiles to the hosts. An ESXi host can match more than one vSphere Auto Deploy rule criteria, when this is the case, the rule order is considered.

Prerequisites

• Prepare your system and install the Auto Deploy Server. For more information, see Prepare Your System for vSphere Auto Deploy.
• If you want to include an image profile to the rule, verify that the software depot you need is added to the inventory. See Add a Software Depot or Import a Software Depot.

Procedure

1. Navigate to Home > Auto Deploy.
   By default, only the administrator role has privileges to use the vSphere Auto Deploy service.
2. On the Deploy Rules tab, click New Deploy Rule.
   The New Deploy Rule wizard appears.
3. On the Name and hosts page of the wizard, enter a name for the new rule.
4. Select to either apply the rule to all hosts in the inventory or only to hosts that match a specific pattern.
   You can select one or more patterns.
   For example, the rule can apply only to hosts in a vCenter Single Sign-On domain, with a specific host name, or that match a specific IPv4 range.
5. On the Configuration page of the wizard, you can optionally include items in the rule.
   Each enabled item adds a new page to the wizard.

   Option	Action
   Host Location	Add the hosts that match the criteria of the rule to a specific location.
   Image Profile	Assign an image profile to the hosts that match the rule criteria.
   Host Profile	Assign a host profile to the hosts that match the rule criteria.
   Script Bundle	Assign a script bundle to the host that match the rule criteria.

6. (Optional) On the Select host location page of the wizard, select a data center, folder, or cluster as host location for the hosts that match the rule.
7. (Optional) On the Select image profile page of the wizard, use the drop-down menu to select a software depot and choose an image profile from the list.
   If you want to bypass the acceptance level verification for the image profile, select the Skip image profile signature check check box.
8. (Optional) On the Select host profile page of the wizard, select a host profile from the list.
9. (Optional) On the Select script bundle page of the wizard, select a script bundle from the list.
10. On the Ready to complete page, review the summary information for the new rule.

Results

You can view the newly created rule listed on the Deploy Rules tab.

What to do next

• Activate a vSphere Auto Deploy rule. See Activate, Deactivate, and Reorder Deploy Rules.
• Edit a vSphere Auto Deploy rule. See Edit an Image Profile.
• Clone a vSphere Auto Deploy rule. See Clone a Deploy Rule
• View the host location, image profile, host profile, and added script bundles. See View Host Associations.
• Remediate non-compliant hosts. See Remediate a Non-compliant Host.
• Change the image profile association of a host. See Edit the Image Profile Association of a Host.