Host Profile Process when adding to existing cluster

[jmontgomery2]

We are moving our environment from 6.5 to 7.  I am trying to instill some better uses of time.  We have an existing Cluster in our vSphere 7 environment with 6 ESXi Hosts.  I need to add 4 additional hosts to that cluster.  If I read all the documentation correctly?  I can take one of the existing and working ESXi Hosts in the Cluster and Create a Host Profile from it and then attach that profile to the new ESXi Host.  That I would think should save me a huge amount of time creating the networking/storage etc using this process?  Am I wrong? 

[ptarnawski]

Hey @jmontgomery2 , 

You are not wrong, Configure your reference ESXi host to have a configuration template to be applied to other ESXi hosts. You can configure security settings, network settings, storage, etc.

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[jmontgomery2]

So,  my best method would be to do as you say...Create the Profile from a Good Working Host in the Cluster.  Then add the new Host into the cluster and attach the profile to it.  I am assuming when I go to remediate it.....it will then ask specific questions where I can customize it as needed?  I am more referring to the Management IP Address etc....as that is required for it to be seen in vCenter or does that make a difference and bypasses that portion.

[ptarnawski]

Export VMware host profile to CSV file.

Remember passwords won't be saved. 

Next, you can open CSV and make customization, you can add more rows and specify customization settings such as IP addresses, MAC addresses, and hostnames for other ESXi hosts and then attach the customization configuration from the CSV file to multiple hosts. If you have exported customizations for N ESXi hosts, you should see the Number of hosts = N and N lines related to each host (where N is the number of hosts). 

Good Luck!

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[jmontgomery2]

Good Afternoon,

I got the following Non-Compliance issue when I created a Reference Host of the DMZ.  Then I attempted to attach the reference host to either of the other 2 ESXi Hosts that will be part of the cluster.  

Just taking the 1st line it stated:

The vmhba device at PCI bus address logical#logical#pci#m00000001#1#0#0 is not present on your host. You must shut down and then insert a card into PCI slot 7. The type of card should exactly match the one in the reference host.

They are all identical PowerEdge FC640's

[ptarnawski]

Hey,

Either the ESXis are missing components, or you just misconfigured the Host profile. Did you add any devices to the customization? 

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[jmontgomery2]

Nothing was added, we basically built Host (1) from scratch and then I figured it would be a good time to attempt invoking Host Profiles into our environment.

[ptarnawski]

Try something else. 

Create a new Host Profile only for the root password and run against your environment. Check if you will still receive an error message. 

So the only change, the only variable will be the root password. 

If there are no errors, add another thing and check again. This step-by-step process will allow for pinpointing where the issue is. 

My blog: AngryAdmin   Twitter: @AngrySysOps   Youtube: @AngryAdmin