Before you can PXE boot an ESXi host with vSphere Auto Deploy, you must install prerequisite software and set up the DHCP and TFTP servers that vSphere Auto Deploy interacts with.

If you want to manage vSphere Auto Deploy with PowerCLI cmdlets, see Set Up vSphere Auto Deploy and Provision Hosts with vSphere PowerCLI.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the hosts that you plan to provision with vSphere Auto Deploy meet the hardware requirements for ESXi. See ESXi Hardware Requirements.
  • Verify that the ESXi hosts have network connectivity to vCenter Server and that all port requirements are met. See vCenter Server Upgrade.
  • Verify that you have a TFTP server and a DHCP server in your environment to send files and assign network addresses to the ESXi hosts that Auto Deploy provisions. See and .
  • Verify that the ESXi hosts have network connectivity to DHCP, TFTP, and vSphere Auto Deploy servers.
  • If you want to use VLANs in your vSphere Auto Deploy environment, you must set up the end to end networking properly. When the host is PXE booting, the firmware driver must be set up to tag the frames with proper VLAN IDs. You must do this set up manually by making the correct changes in the UEFI/BIOS interface. You must also correctly configure the ESXi port groups with the correct VLAN IDs. Ask your network administrator how VLAN IDs are used in your environment.
  • Verify that you have enough storage for the vSphere Auto Deploy repository. The vSphere Auto Deploy server uses the repository to store data it needs, including the rules and rule sets you create and the VIBs and image profiles that you specify in your rules.

    Best practice is to allocate 2 GB to have enough room for four image profiles and some extra space. Each image profile requires approximately 400 MB. Determine how much space to reserve for the vSphere Auto Deploy repository by considering how many image profiles you expect to use.

  • Obtain administrative privileges to the DHCP server that manages the network segment you want to boot from. You can use a DHCP server already in your environment, or install a DHCP server. For your vSphere Auto Deploy setup, replace the gpxelinux.0 filename with snponly64.efi.vmw-hardwired for UEFI or undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired for BIOS. For more information on DHCP configurations, see Sample DHCP Configurations.
  • Secure your network as for any other PXE-based deployment method. vSphere Auto Deploy transfers data over SSL to prevent casual interference and snooping. However, the authenticity of the client or the vSphere Auto Deploy server is not checked during a PXE boot.
  • If you want to manage vSphere Auto Deploy with PowerCLI cmdlets, verify that Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 or 4.5.x and Windows PowerShell 3.0 or 4.0 are installed on a Windows machine. See the vSphere PowerCLI User's Guide.
  • Set up a remote Syslog server. See the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation for Syslog server configuration information. Configure the first host you boot to use the remote Syslog server and apply that host's host profile to all other target hosts. Optionally, install and use VMware vCenter Log Insight, which provides log aggregation and analytics for VMware and non-VMware products, virtual and physical, with near real-time search and analytics of log events.
  • Install ESXi Dump Collector, set up your first host so that all core dumps are directed to ESXi Dump Collector, and apply the host profile from that host to all other hosts.
  • If the hosts that you plan to provision with vSphere Auto Deploy are with legacy BIOS, verify that the vSphere Auto Deploy server has an IPv4 address. PXE booting with legacy BIOS firmware is possible only over IPv4. PXE booting with UEFI firmware is possible with either IPv4 or IPv6.

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 Auto Deploy page, select your vCenter Server from the drop-down menu at the top.
  3. Click Enable Auto Deploy and Image Builder to activate the service.
    If the Image Builder service is already active, select the Configure tab and click Enable Auto Deploy Service.
    The Software Depot page appears.
  4. Configure the TFTP server.
    1. Click the Configure tab.
    2. Click Download TFTP Boot Zip to download the TFTP configuration file and unzip the file to the directory in which your TFTP server stores files.
    3. (Optional) To use a proxy server, click Add on the Auto Deploy Runtime Summary pane and enter a proxy server URL in the text box.
      Using reverse proxy servers can offload the requests made to the vSphere Auto Deploy server.
  5. Set up your DHCP server to point to the TFTP server on which the TFTP ZIP file is located.
    1. Specify the TFTP Server's IP address in DHCP option 66, frequently called next-server.
    2. Specify the boot filename, which is snponly64.efi.vmw-hardwired for UEFI or undionly.kpxe.vmw-hardwired for BIOS in the DHCP option 67, frequently called boot-filename.
  6. Set each host you want to provision with vSphere Auto Deploy to network boot or PXE boot, following the manufacturer's instructions.
  7. (Optional) If you set up your environment to use Thumbprint mode, you can use your own Certificate Authority (CA) by replacing the OpenSSL certificate rbd-ca.crt and the OpenSSL private key rbd-ca.key with your own certificate and key file.
    The files are in /etc/vmware-rbd/ssl/.
    By default, vCenter Server uses VMware Certificate Authority (VMCA).

Results

When you start an ESXi host that is set up for vSphere Auto Deploy, the host contacts the DHCP server and is directed to the vSphere Auto Deploy server, which provisions the host with the image profile specified in the active rule set.

What to do next

  • You can change the default configuration properties of the Auto Deploy Service. For more information, see "Configuring vCenter Server" in the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
  • You can change the default configuration properties of the Image Builder Service. For more information, see "Configuring vCenter Server" in the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.
  • Define a rule that assigns an image profile and optional host profile, host location, or script bundle to the host.
  • (Optional) Configure the first host that you provision as a reference host. Use the storage, networking, and other settings you want for your target hosts to share. Create a host profile for the reference host and write a rule that assigns both the already tested image profile and the host profile to target hosts.
  • (Optional) If you want to have vSphere Auto Deploy overwrite existing partitions, set up a reference host to do auto partitioning and apply the host profile of the reference host to other hosts.
  • (Optional) If you have to configure host-specific information, set up the host profile of the reference host to prompt for user input. For more information about host customizations, see the vSphere Host Profiles documentation.