Everything-Virtual

Category: CentOS 7

  • Bulk Windows / Linux VM Deployments via PowerCLI and CSV file

    So I had to look recently at a mechanism that could mass deploy over 100 VM’s at a time, these had to be a mix of Windows and Linux, had to have the potential to include not only IP addressing but also creating a computer object in AD prior to VM creation and domain joining as well as templates, vCenter folders, Clusters and storage.

    Having had a look around and there are a couple of decent scripts out there that could do that quite well so I had a closer look at a modified script by Juan Vidañez

    I have forked his script on GitHub to allow it to function as I needed (pre-creation of Computer AD accounts in specified OU’s to ensure that when joined to AD the accounts were located in the correct location on first boot and wouldn’t have to be manually moved later on).

    A quick trial deployment in my home lab was very successful with 24 CentOS7 VMs deployed (1.6GB thin provisioned storage), configured with DHCP addresses, individual names and pre-created AD Computer accounts, these were deployed and running in just under 6 minutes.

  • Creating a CentOS 7.2 VMware Gold Template

    In a post from last year I documented how to create a CentOS 7 VMware Gold Template for all the non-Linux admins out there.

    There were questions at the time on me not leaving this in a fully cleaned state making it not 100% usable outside of my homelab environment. centos7

    Following the instructions below will yield a template ready for future use that ensures you can deploy at speed and in a reliable fashion ensuring that SSH keys are deleted, logs emptied and unique network identifiers are removed from the image.

    All told this should take no longer than 30 minutes to complete.

    Just to point out that for this to succeed you need to be running vCenter 5.5u3 or vCenter 6 as found in the Guest OS Customization Matrix 

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  • Creating a CentOS 7 VMware Gold Template – Updated for Deployment Fix

    I have created a new post here that details the most up to date information for CentOS 7.x Templates.

     

    I have documented how to create a CentOS 7 VMware Gold Template for all the non-Linux admins out there. centos7

    Following the instructions below will yield a template ready for future installs that ensures you can deploy at speed.

    All told this should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.

    I have amended the post with details on how to fix the guest customisation issues that I was experiencing before.

    I can now successfully deploy new VM’s from the template.

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