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VMware Tools for hosts provisioned with Auto Deploy
Details
There are two approaches to provisioning hosts with Auto Deploy with regard to VMware Tools. In one, the image profile used by Auto Deploy contains VMware Tools. In the other, the image profile does not contain VMware Tools, and if you Auto Deploy ESXi without VMware Tools, you must point to shared storage that contains VMware Tools at every reboot.
VMware Depot contains two image profiles.
xxxxx-standard: an image profile that includes the VMware Tools binaries, required by the guest operating system running inside a virtual machine. The image is usually named esxi-5.0.0-xxxxx-standard.
xxxxx-no-tools: an image profile that does not include the VMware Tools binaries. This image profile is usually smaller in size, has less memory overhead, and is faster to boot in a PXE-boot environment because of its relatively smaller size. This image is usually named esxi-5.0.0-xxxxx-no-tools.
Solution
You can deploy ESXi using either one of the images. If the network boot time is of no concern and you do not mind some extra memory and storage overhead, choose the image that includes VMware Tools. However, if you find the network boot time too slow when using the standard image, or if you want to save some space on the hosts, you can use the no-tools profile and share the tools binaries on a shared storage. If you choose to use the no-tools image profile, you must manually set up the productLocker symlink to point to a shared storage containing the tools. This would have to be done on every reboot.
Boot up a host with disk-installed ESXi.
Copy the /productLocker directory to a shared storage.
Create an AutoDeploy rule using the no-tools image profile and create a HostProfile to mount the shared storage on which you placed the /productLocker directory.
Boot the host using the above rule.
Log in to the PXE-booted host and change the symbolic link /productLocker to point to the shared storage. ln -sf /vmfs/volumes/<shared storage>/productLocker /productLocker
Repeat step 5 at every reboot for each host that has been deployed with the no-tools image profile.
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