vSphere Host Profiles Update 1 VMware vSphere 6.5 VMware ESXi 6.5 vCenter Server 6.
vSphere Host Profiles You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at: https://docs.vmware.com/ If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to docfeedback@vmware.com VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2009–2018 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright and trademark information. VMware, Inc.
Contents ® About vSphere Host Profiles Updated Information 4 5 1 Introduction To vSphere Host Profiles 6 Host Profiles Usage Model 6 Reference Host Independence 7 2 Using Host Profiles 8 Access Host Profiles 8 Create a Host Profile 9 Attach Entities to a Host Profile 9 Detach Entities from a Host Profile Check Compliance 10 10 Remediate a Host 11 Edit a Host Profile 12 Duplicate a Host Profile Copy Settings from Host 15 16 Host Profiles and vSphere Auto Deploy Import a Host Profile 1
About vSphere® Host Profiles The vSphere Host Profiles documentation provides information about managing Host Profiles. The vSphere Host Profiles documentation describes how to manage and configure Host Profiles in the vSphere Web Client. Intended Audience The vSphere Host Profiles documentation is intended for administrators who are familiar with vSphere host configuration. VMware, Inc.
Updated Information This is updated with each release of the product or when necessary. This table provides the update history of the vSphere Host Profiles. Revision Description 12 FEB 2018 Minor changes. 04 OCT 2017 Added a Chapter 4 Troubleshooting Host Profiles section. EN-002643-00 Initial release. VMware, Inc.
Introduction To vSphere Host Profiles 1 The Host Profiles feature creates a profile that encapsulates the host configuration and helps to manage the host configuration, especially in environments where an administrator manages multiple hosts or clusters in vCenter Server. Host Profiles provide an automated and centrally managed mechanism for host configuration and configuration compliance. Host Profiles can improve efficiency by reducing reliance upon repetitive, manual tasks.
vSphere Host Profiles 2 Create a host profile from the reference host. 3 Attach hosts or clusters to the host profile. 4 Check the compliance to the host profile. If all hosts are compliant with the reference host, they are correctly configured. 5 Apply (remediate). As a licensed feature of vSphere, Host Profiles are only available when the appropriate licensing is in place. If you see errors, ensure that you have the appropriate vSphere licensing for your hosts.
Using Host Profiles 2 This section describes how to perform some of the basic tasks for Host Profiles.
vSphere Host Profiles Create a Host Profile You create a host profile by extracting the designated reference host configuration. Note You can also extract a host profile by right-clicking the specific host and select Host Profiles > Extract Host Profile. Prerequisites Verify that you have a working vSphere installation and at least one completely and properly configured host that acts as the reference host. Procedure 1 Navigate to the Host Profiles view.
vSphere Host Profiles 6 Click Next. 7 (Optional) You can update or change the user input parameters for the Host Profiles policies by customizing the host. You will not see this step if you enabled Skip Host Customization. See Host Profiles and vSphere Auto Deploy. 8 Click Finish to complete attaching the host or cluster to the profile.
vSphere Host Profiles A non-compliant status indicates a discovered and specific inconsistency between the profile and the host. To resolve this, you should remediate the host. Any unknown status indicates that the compliance of the host could not be verified; to resolve the issue, remediate the host through the host profile. Very often the compliance check fails because the host is disconnected. Note Host profiles do not capture offline or unpresented devices.
vSphere Host Profiles 7 Select the checkbox to reboot the host if it is required in order to complete the remediation process. If you wish to manually reboot the host after the process, do not select the checkbox. 8 Review the tasks that are necessary to remediate the Host Profile and click Finish. The compliance status is updated. Edit a Host Profile You can view and edit Host Profiles policies, select a policy to be checked for compliance, and change the policy name or description.
vSphere Host Profiles Edit a Policy A policy describes how a specific configuration setting is applied. You can edit policies belonging to a specific Host Profile. When you edit the Host Profile, you can expand the Host Profile's configuration hierarchy to see the subprofile components that comprise the Host Profile. These components are categorized by functional group or resource class to make it easier to find a particular parameter.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 2‑1. Subset of Host Profile Subprofile Configurations (Continued) Component Categories Configuration Settings Security Firewall, Security Settings, Service Storage Configure storage options, including Native Multi-Pathing (NMP), Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA), FCoE and iSCSI adapters, and NFS storage. Notes and Examples n Use the vSphere CLI to configure or modify the NMP and PSA policies on a reference host, and then extract the Host Profile from that host.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 2‑1. Subset of Host Profile Subprofile Configurations (Continued) Component Categories Configuration Settings Notes and Examples For example: navireg= ipfilter= action_onRetryErrors= Note The policy configuration options that are marked with off are not present in the configuration string.
vSphere Host Profiles Procedure 1 Navigate to the profile that you want to duplicate. 2 Click the Duplicate Host Profile icon ( ). 3 Type different name and description for the duplicate Host Profile, and click Next. 4 Review the summary information for the new profile and click Finish. A clone of the profile appears in the Host Profiles list.
vSphere Host Profiles Remediation for these hosts is the same as statefully deployed hosts. The user is prompted to customize the hosts and enter answers for policies that are specified during Host Profile creation when the Host Profile is applied. Note If you deploy ESXi through Auto Deploy, configure syslog to store logs on a remote server. See the instructions to set up Syslog from the Host Profiles interface in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.
vSphere Host Profiles Copy Settings to Host Profile Once you make changes to a host profile, you can propagate those changes to other host profiles in the inventory. Procedure 1 Navigate to a Host Profile. 2 Right-click the profile and select Copy Settings to Host Profiles or click the 3 Select the settings you wish to copy to other host profiles, and click Next. 4 Select the target host profile that will be overwritten with the selected settings, and click Next. icon.
Configuring Host Profiles 3 This section describes how to configure host profiles using the host profile editor. This chapter includes the following topics: n Host Customization n Configure Storage Host Profiles n Configure Security Host Profile n Set Up Host Profiles for Static IP Addresses in the vSphere Web Client Host Customization To customize hosts with shared attributes, you can create a host profile in a reference host.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 3‑1. Host Profile Options that Prompt for iSCSI User Input Information to Request User Input For Setting the Host Profile Option When you apply a host profile on a system that includes a profile for iSCSI, you are prompted for several properties. For many of the properties, a system default is available. For some properties, you must specify a value or an error results. 1 Select Edit Host Profile, click Storage configuration, and click iSCSI Initiator Configuration.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 3‑3. Host Profile Options that Prompt for Security User Input Information to Request User Input For Setting the Host Profile Option Administrator password for ESXi host when the host boots for the first time. 1 Select Edit Host Profile, and click Security and Services. 2 click Security Settings and click Security configuration. 3 In the right panel, select User Input Password to be Used to Configure Administrator Password from the Administrator password drop-down menu.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 3‑4. Host Profile Options that Prompt for Networking User Input Information to Request User Input For Setting the Host Profile Option Prompt the user for the MAC address for a port group. You can have the system prompt the user in all cases (User specified MAC address...) or prompt the user only if no default is available. 1 Select Edit Host Profile, click Networking configuration, and click Host port group. 2 Click Management Network.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 3‑4. Host Profile Options that Prompt for Networking User Input (Continued) Information to Request User Input For Setting the Host Profile Option Prompt the user for the IPv4 address for a distributed switch, its port group, or one of its services. Right-click the Host virtual NIC folder icon and click the Add sub-profile icon to determine the component to which the setting is applied. 1 Open Networking configuration. 2 Click Host virtual NIC.
vSphere Host Profiles 2 Right-click the host profile and select Edit Host Customizations. 3 Select the host or hosts for which to edit the customization, and click Next. 4 (Optional) Click Browse to import a .csv file from your desktop. After importing the .csv file, the fields are updated with the information from the file. 5 Edit the host configuration values. 6 Click Finish.
vSphere Host Profiles 4 Remediate the profile to the reference host for the changes in the sharing state to take effect on the reference host. If you must re-extract the profile (for example, if you attach more shared SAN boot LUNs to your cluster), you do not need to reconfigure sharing for devices that you previously configured. Configure Security Host Profile Use this procedure to manage role, user account, and active directory permission profiles that are grouped as part of the security host profile.
vSphere Host Profiles Set Up Host Profiles for Static IP Addresses in the vSphere Web Client By default, hosts provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy are assigned DHCP addresses by a DHCP server. You can use the vSphere Auto Deploy host customization mechanism to assign static IP addresses to hosts. Prerequisites n Set up your vSphere Auto Deploy environment. n Boot the host using vSphere Auto Deploy. n Extract a host profile from the host.
Troubleshooting Host Profiles 4 The Host Profiles troubleshooting topics provide solutions to problems that you might encounter when performing tasks for Host Profiles in vCenter Server . This chapter includes the following topics: n Host Customization Data Is Missing n Reference Host is Unavailable n Edit Settings for Host Profiles is Failing n Host Profile without NFS Datastore Host Customization Data Is Missing Deploying a stateless host results with a failure in exiting maintenance mode.
vSphere Host Profiles Reference Host is Unavailable Creating a Host Profile into the vCenter Server inventory results with a failure. Problem When you perform Host Profiles operations into the vCenter Server inventory such as: n Edit a Host Profile. n Import a Host Profile. n Export a Host Profile. The process of creating a host profile fails with an error. There is no suitable host in the inventory as reference host for the profile Host Profile.
vSphere Host Profiles n Use the Copy Settings from Host option to copy the configuration settings from a host already upgraded to a version 5.5. or later. Note Using the Copy Settings from Host option overwrites the settings within the existing Host Profile or sets them to the default values. Host Profile without NFS Datastore Host profile compliance check fails for NFS datastore.
