7.0

Options for Configuration of a vSphere Auto Deploy Reference Host explains how to perform this
setup.
Watch the video "Auto Deploy Reference Hosts" for information about the reference host setup:
(vSphere Auto Deploy Reference Hosts )
Options for Configuration of a vSphere Auto Deploy Reference Host
You can configure a reference host by using the vSphere Client, ESXCLI, or host profiles.
To set up a reference host, you can use the approach that suits you best.
vSphere Client
The vSphere Client supports setup of networking, storage, security, and most other aspects of
an ESXi host. Set up your environment and create a host profile from the reference host for
use by vSphere Auto Deploy.
ESXCLI
You can use ESXCLI for setup of many aspects of your host. ESXCLI is suitable for configuring
many of the services in the vSphere environment. Commands include esxcli system ntp
for setting up an NTP server, esxcli system syslog for setting up a syslog server,
esxcli network route for adding routes and set up the default route, and esxcli system
coredump for configuring ESXi Dump Collector.
Host Profiles Feature
Best practice is to set up a host with vSphere Client or ESXCLI and create a host profile from
that host. You can instead use the Host Profiles feature in the vSphere Client and save that
host profile.
vSphere Auto Deploy applies all common settings from the host profile to all target hosts. If you
set up the host profile to prompt for user input, all hosts provisioned with that host profile come
up in maintenance mode. You must reapply the host profile or reset host customizations to be
prompted for the host-specific information.
Configure ESXi Dump Collector with ESXCLI
Hosts provisioned with vSphere Auto Deploy do not have a local disk to store core dumps on.
You can configure ESXi Dump Collector by using ESXCLI commands and keep core dumps on a
network server for use during debugging.
VMware ESXi Installation and Setup
VMware, Inc. 171