vSphere Host Profiles 17 APR 2018 VMware vSphere 6.7 VMware ESXi 6.7 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 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 8 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 17 Export a Host Profil
vSphere Host Profiles Host Profile without NFS Datastore VMware, Inc.
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 Client. Intended Audience The vSphere Host Profiles documentation is intended for administrators who are familiar with vSphere host configuration. vSphere Client Instructions in this guide reflect the vSphere Client (an HTML5-based GUI).
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 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. If you want the Host Profile to use directory services for authentication, the reference host needs to be configured to use a directory service. See the vSphere Security documentation.
Using Host Profiles 2 This section describes how to perform some of the basic tasks for Host Profiles.
vSphere Host Profiles 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 main view and click Extract Host Profile. 2 Select the host that acts as the reference host and click Next. The selected host must be a valid host. 3 Enter the name and description for the new profile, and click Next.
vSphere Host Profiles Detach Entities from a Host Profile To disassociate a configuration from an ESXi host or an entire cluster, that host or cluster must be detached from the host profile. When a host profile is attached to a cluster, the host or hosts within that cluster are also attached to the host profile. However, when the host profile is detached from the entire cluster, there is no association between the host or hosts within the cluster and that host 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 5 Click Pre-check Remediation to check if the selected hosts are ready for remediation. This check generates a list of tasks that will be performed on the host. 6 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. 7 Review the tasks that are necessary to remediate the Host Profile and click Finish. The compliance status is updated.
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 Host Profiles main view and select the host profile you want to duplicate. 2 Click Duplicate Host Profile. 3 Type different name and description for the duplicate Host Profile, and click OK. A clone of the profile appears in the Host Profiles list. Copy Settings from Host If the configuration of the reference host changes, you can update the host profile so that it matches the reference host's new configuration.
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 in the vSphere Web Client Once you make changes to a host profile, you can propagate those changes to other host profiles in the inventory. Procedure 1 Navigate to Host Profiles main view. 2 Right-click the profile and select Copy Settings to Host Profiles or click the icon. 3 Select the settings you wish to copy to other host profiles, and click Next.
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 Security Host Profile n Configure Networking Host Profiles Host Customization To customize hosts with shared attributes, you can create a host profile in a reference host. To customize individual hosts, you can set up some fields in the host profile to prompt the user for input for each 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 Edit Host Customizations You can edit the host customizations for specific hosts attached to a host profile or cluster attached to a host profile. Procedure 1 Navigate to Host Profiles main view. 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) In the Customize hosts pane, you can Import Host Customization .csv file from your desktop. After importing the .
vSphere Host Profiles Role This profile allows you to view default roles and add custom roles within the ESXi system. User Configuration This profile allows you to create and manage user accounts. Active Directory Permission Here are some of the operations that you can perform for user accounts: n Create a user account. n Configure the password for a user account. n Configure the password for the root user. n Configure the role for any user that is not the default one.
vSphere Host Profiles 9 Right-click the host and select All vCenter Actions > Host Profiles > Attach Host Profile. 10 Select the profile to attach and click Next. 11 Provide the IP address and net mask and click Finish. 12 Reboot the ESXi host. The IP address is saved as a host customization and applied to the host. VMware, Inc.
4 Recommended Host Profiles Upgrade Workflows Each workflow is the recommended upgrade path while upgrading your vCenter Server 6.0 and 6.5 environment, that contains one or more host profiles with version 5.5, 6.0 and 6.5. Upgrade Support Matrix When you upgrade your vCenter Server from version 6.0 or 6.5 to version 6.7, you can keep your current ESXi host version and Host Profiles version. For other upgrade workflows, see the Upgrade Support Matrix. Table 4‑1.
vSphere Host Profiles Environment Contains Stateful ESXi 5.5 and 6.0 Hosts If your cluster contains stateful ESXi 5.5 and ESXi 6.0 hosts, you use the present workflow to resolve version compliance errors when upgrading vCenter Server with version 6.0 to version 6.7. Prerequisites n Your cluster contains ESXi 5.5 and ESXi 6.0 hosts. n A host profile with version 5.5 is attached to the cluster. n Your vCenter Server is with version 6.0. Procedure 1 Upgrade all ESXi 5.
vSphere Host Profiles Environment Contains Stateful ESXi 6.0 Hosts Оnly If your cluster contains stateful ESXi 6.0 hosts, you use the present workflow to resolve version compliance errors when upgrading vCenter Server with version 6.0 to version 6.7. Prerequisites n Your cluster contains ESXi 6.0 hosts. n A host profile with version 6.0 is attached to the cluster. n Your vCenter Server is with version 6.0. Procedure 1 Upgrade your vCenter Server to version 6.7.
vSphere Host Profiles Prerequisites n Your cluster contains ESXi 5.5, 6.0 and ESXi 6.5 hosts. n A host profile with version 5.5 is attached to the cluster. n Your vCenter Server is with version 6.5. Procedure 1 Upgrade all ESXi 5.5 hosts in the cluster to version to 6.0 or 6.5. The Active Directory settings configured in the ESXi host before upgrade are not retained when the host is upgraded to ESXi 6.0. The host is no longer joined to the domain.
vSphere Host Profiles Environment Contains Stateful ESXi 6.5 Hosts Only If your cluster contains stateful ESXi 6.5 hosts, you use the present workflow to resolve version compliance errors when upgrading vCenter Server with version 6.5 to version 6.7. Prerequisites n Your cluster contains ESXi 6.5 hosts. n A host profile with version 6.5 is attached to the cluster. n Your vCenter Server is with version 6.5. Procedure 1 Upgrade your vCenter Server to version 6.7.
vSphere Host Profiles Procedure 1 Create a host profile from an ESXi 6.0 host. 2 Apply the host profile to the cluster. 3 Upgrade your vCenter Server to version 6.7. There are no changes in the vCenter Server configurations. 4 Create a new rule with an image profile version 6.7 and select the cluster. 5 Activate the rule. 6 Boot all ESXi hosts in the cluster. All hosts are compliant with the host profile.
vSphere Host Profiles 4 Reboot all the ESXi hosts in the cluster. Remediation and check compliance operations are available, but the host profile with version 6.5 cannot be edited. All the hosts are compliant with the host profile. 5 Extract a new host profile from an ESXi 6.7 host. There are some changed parameters for the host profile policy. For more information, see Answer File Field and Host Profile Extraction. 6 Attach the host profile with version 6.7 to the cluster.
vSphere Host Profiles Table 4‑2. Answer File Field and Host Profile Extraction (Continued) Policy option path General System Settings -> Management Agent Configuration -> SNMP Agent Configuration Policy option Variations in the policy options value in the newly extracted profile UserInputMaxBurstLength Changes to fixed. Does not keep user input value. UserInputMaxReceiveSegmentLength Changes to fixed. Does not keep user input value. UserInputUsers Changes to fixed. Does not keep user input value.
Troubleshooting Host Profiles 5 The Host Profiles troubleshooting topics provide solutions to problems that you might encounter when performing tasks for Host Profiles in vCenter Server . If upgrading your vCenter Server to version 6.7 results with a failure due to an existing host profile in the inventory, see vCenter Server Upgrade for Upgrade Issues with vCenter Server Containing Host Profiles.
vSphere Host Profiles n Refer to the host profiles command-line utility in Host Profiles CLI for customizing stateless hosts. 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.
vSphere Host Profiles Procedure 1 For SAS devices that are not detected as local, navigate to Edit Host Profile and select Storage configuration > Pluggable Storage Architecture configuration > PSA device sharing > name of device. 2 For each device not shared across the cluster, disable Device is shared clusterwide. Note By default, the Device is shared clusterwide setting is disabled for devices detected as local and enabled for non-local devices.
vSphere Host Profiles or There are no hosts available in the inventory at the version for the selected Host Profile Cause vSphere 6.5 supports only hosts and host profiles with version 5.5 and later. Solution n Extract a Host Profile from an already upgraded host to version 5.5. or later. 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.
