Capture an ESXi Image

[Patr1ck]

I would like to create an image of a fully configured ESX1 5.1 Server that I can deploy out to new Servers.

Does anyone know if this is possible or if a tool exists that would do this? maybe Ghost?

Thanks,

P4trick

[vThinkBeyondVM]

Do you mean capturing all host configuration and apply on all other host the same? If yes, you could host profile feature.

What is VMware host profile? - Definition from WhatIs.com

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-51-host-pr...

Hope this helps. If this is not that you need, plz come back with your detailed use case.

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Plz award points as appropriate

[Patr1ck]

Hi Vickyvision2020,

Thanks for replying....I think we are on the same page. Here's what I mean.

I buy a new server and install ESXi 5.1. Then I build all of my Win 2008 server vm's on the ESXi server and configure them with my settings....So now I have my fully configured ESX1 host server with 5 fully configured windows server VM's on it.

Next, I want create a "Gold Master" image file of the whole physical server (which includes the fully configured 5 vms ), and then save the image to a file that I can deploy to a totally different Physical server with identical hardware. This would save me a lot of setup time. Does that make sense?

Thanks,

P4trick

[suj27]

You can't clone the ESXi this way. You will need to install ESXi on the new hardware, if the settings on the first host are correct and should be set on the new host, then create a host profile by using the first host as reference. The host profile can be then applied on the second and subsequent hosts. For the Windows Servers, it looks that you need a similar copy, you could clone the existing VMs or create a template from the original VM and deploy it. These operations generally takes less time and saves your time from configuring the guest OS and apps. You could also do a guest customization after cloning or template deployment so that the new VMs are unique (things like Security Identifier are same between the VMs after cloning).

[vThinkBeyondVM]

Yes,

There is no way to create image which includes VMs as well. You can raise the feature request with VMware. There will be lot of constraint from implementation perspective.

-For VMs:

1. You create template of one of the VMs & deploy the same. (if all 5 Vms are having different configuration, then you wil have to have five different templates.)

vSphere Documentation Center

2. Alternatively you can create OVF template. (you can do this only by using ESXi from VI client or web cleint)

VMware vSphere 4 - ESX and vCenter Server

3. Other way is to clone existing VM on new host . For this you need to add both hosts into vCenter server.

vSphere Documentation Center

4. Creating VM & installing GOS, you can always write scripts with all the configuration u need

For ESXi:

-You need to install ESXi on all the hosts.

-To reduce manual work, you may think to automate this process by using scripts.

- host profiles as specified earlier.

I will see if there are any option and get back to you

[hongdida]

You want to capture an image that you can deploy the image in other server using VM? Not sure whether following post can offer some help.:smileyplain:

Creating an custom VMWare ESXi 5.5.0 ISO Image for Installation on a Hetzner Server | Simple Things

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/158682

I am looking for your further progress. Good luck.