Complicated Cloning Process

[JDPea]

We have multiple VM's that a vendor will be making updates to an application soon.  The previous administrator would have the vendor update one VM and then he would deploy it replacing the rest of the VM's with same names, IPs, etc.  I have never done this before so if someone could walk me through that process I would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeremy

[vijayrana968]

1. You must note down the config of old VMs first (IP and Host Names etc) and shutdown them with renaming in vmware inventory something like vmname_old.

2. Once your vendor make one VM updated, you can shutdown and clone copies with name of those VMs.

3. Before powering on these cloned VMs, disconnect their nic from VM settings and Power ON. From VM console, reconfigure the IPs, hostname and other settings if there were.

4. Shutdown those VMs, mark their nics 'connected'  in VM settings and power on.

[JDPea]

Outstanding! 

Thanks so much.  I will test this out this evening and let you know my results!

Cheers!

[vijayrana968]

Note : You will have to run sysprep if these machines are Windows. Also, if you're doing this first time, don't delete old VMs unless youre new VMs are up with application running This will need some space on datastore.

[JDPea]

These are windows machines.  Why will I need to run sysprep if I'm cloning a machine?  I'll be doing this from Vsphere.  Is sysprep I run from within Vsphere or will I need to do it on the cloned VM once it's been deployed?

[vijayrana968]

You have to do it from inside window os in cloned copy of VM, this will clean the system data including sid which this cloned machine is carrying from source VM.

[JDPea]

That makes sense.  So, once I power it on for the first time do I just shift+f3 or is it a different process?

[vijayrana968]

When you login to new cloned VM, run "C:\windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe" - Chosse 'OOBE','Generalize' and 'Reboot'. After sysprep and reboot VM will come up then you can configure IP and hostname.

[JDPea]

Makes sense!  Thanks again for your help!  Will let you know what the results are after tonight!

[Rsahi]

This functionality is achieved by using template

Steps to do is as follows

give one vm to the vendor, ask him to make changes

once vendor finishes it, poweroff vm and convert it to template

If your VM is 2008 and later you dont have to do sysprep. for others just extract the sysprep tool to the following directory in vCSA or vcenter

VMware Knowledge Base

This applies to even 6.5 and 6.7 vcenter

you dont even have to remember even the VMS hostname and IP address if your VMs Names are in sequence  and IP addresses are in Sequence you just can create custom specification for the VMs

Create a Customization Specification for Windows

Then just keep spinning the new VMs from template using custom specifications. you will be asked to provide custom specifications while deploying new vms.

keep old vms till you can verify the concept, after that just spin new vms as required

Thank you