Export an Image Profile to ISO or Offline Bundle ZIP

You can export an image profile to an ISO image or a ZIP file by using the vSphere Client.

Prerequisites

You can export an image profile to an ISO image or a ZIP file by using the vSphere Client. You can use the ISO image as an ESXi installer or to upgrade hosts with vSphere Lifecycle Manager. The ZIP file contains metadata and the VIBs of the image profile. You can use it for ESXi upgrades or as an offline depot.

• Verify that the vSphere ESXi Image Builder service is enabled and running. See Configure the vSphere ESXi Image Builder.
• Add or import a software depot to the vSphere ESXi Image Builder inventory. See Add a Software Depot and Import a Software Depot.

Procedure

1. Navigate to Home > Auto Deploy.
   By default, only the administrator role has privileges to use the vSphere ESXi Image Builder service.
2. On the Software Depots tab, use the drop-down menu to select the software depot that contains the image profile that you want to work with.
3. On the Image Profiles tab, select the image profile that you want to export and click Export.
   The Export Image Profile window appears.
4. Select the type of the exported file.

   Option	Description
   ISO	Exports the image profile to a bootable ISO image. If you want to create an ISO image that you can burn to a CD or DVD and use to start a stateless ESXi instance, select the Do not include an installer on the ISO check box.
   ZIP	Exports the image profile to a ZIP file.

5. (Optional) If you want to bypass the acceptance level verification of the image profile, select Skip acceptance level checking.
6. Click Ok.
   The Download link starts generating in the "Download Image Profiles" column of the selected image profile.
7. When the image generates successfully, click Download to save the exported file.

What to do next

• You can associate an image profile with a new vSphere Auto Deploy rule to provision ESXi hosts. See Create a Deploy Rule or Clone a Deploy Rule.
• You can associate an image profile with an ESXi host. See Add a Host to the vSphere Auto Deploy Inventory.
• Edit the Image Profile Association of a Host.

Export an Image Profile to an ISO or Offline Bundle ZIP with PowerCLI Cmdlets

You can export an image profile to an ISO image or a ZIP file of component files and folders. You cannot create both by running the cmdlet once. You can use the ISO image as an ESXi installer or upload the ISO into vSphere Lifecycle Manager for upgrades.

Prerequisites

Install the PowerCLI and all prerequisite software. See Configure vSphere ESXi Image Builder.

Procedure

1. In a PowerCLI session, run the Add-EsxSoftwareDepot cmdlet for each depot you want to work with.

   Option	Action
   Remote depot	Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot -DepotUrl <depot_url>.
   ZIP file	Download the ZIP file to a local file system. Run Add-EsxSoftwareDepot -DepotUrl C:\<file_path>\<offline-bundle>.zip

   The cmdlet returns one or more SoftwareDepot objects.
2. Run Export-EsxImageProfile to export the image profile.

   Export Format	Cmdlet
   ISO images	Export-EsxImageProfile with the -ExportToIso parameter
   Offline depot ZIP files	Export-EsxImageProfile with the -ExportToBundle parameter

Results

For the ISO image, vSphere ESXi Image Builder validates VIB signatures, adds VIB binaries to the image, and downloads the image to the specified location. For the ZIP file, vSphere ESXi Image Builder validates VIB signatures and downloads the VIB binaries to the specified location.

Example: Exporting an Image Profile

Follow these steps to export an image profile to an ISO image.

1. Add the software depot.

   Add-EsxSoftwareDepot -DepotUrl url_or_file

2. View all available image profiles to find the name of the image profile to export.

   Get-EsxImageProfile

3. Export the image profile.

   Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile "myprofile" -ExportToIso -FilePath iso_name

Follow these steps to export an image profile to a ZIP file of component files and folders.

1. Add the software depot.

   Add-EsxSoftwareDepot -DepotUrl url_or_file

2. View all available image profiles to find the name of the image profile to export.

   Get-EsxImageProfile

3. Export the image profile.

   Export-EsxImageProfile -ImageProfile "myprofile" -ExportToBundle -FilePath C:\my_bundle.zip

What to do next

Use the ISO image in an ESXi installation or upload the ISO image into vSphere Lifecycle Manager to perform upgrades.

Use the ZIP file to upgrade an ESXi installation.

• Import the ZIP file into vSphere Lifecycle Manager for use with patch baselines.
• Download the ZIP file to an ESXi host or a datastore and run esxcli software vib commands to import the VIBs in the ZIP file.

See the vSphere Upgrade documentation.