Introduction
As the name suggests, the ESXi Image Builder is used to build ESXi bootable images. It is particularly useful when there is a need to custom-build an ESXi image. For example, it can be used to custom-build ESXi images with an updated device driver and that can be used in your vSphere environment. The VMware Auto Deploy leverages the ability of the ESXi Image Builder to deploy stateless/stateful ESXi hosts. Read Chapter 5, Using vSphere Auto Deploy for more details.
The Image Builder requires the following data to proceed:
- An offline bundle of the ESXi packages
- Driver/software offline bundles from the vendor-partners you want to integrate
- VMware PowerCLI
Once you have all the required data software downloaded, you can use the ESXi Image Builder cmdlets to create an image profile using the ESXi offline depot.
The ESXi Image Builder doesn't need a separate installation. The vSphere PowerCLI has the Image Builder snap-in built into it. You should be ready to go once you have VMware vSphere PowerCLI 5.5 installed.
vSphere Installation Bundle
A vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) is a packaged archive that contains a file archive, an XML configuration file, and a signature file. Most of the hardware OEMs package their device driver bundles as VIBs.
Image profiles
An image profile is a predefined or custom-defined set of VIBs that can be addressed as a package. All the VMware ESXi offline bundles will have more than one VMware-defined image profile. The image profiles are primarily used to deploy, upgrade, and patch auto-deployed ESXi servers. You will learn how to auto-provision ESXi hosts, in Chapter 5, Using vSphere Auto Deploy.
Offline bundles
An offline bundle is an archive that can either be the entire ESXi image or a driver bundle. It is a collection of VIBs and the corresponding metadata. It is the first thing that the Image Builder will need to perform any of its tasks. It is also referred to as a software depot by the vSphere PowerCLI. Refer to the following image:
The metadata archive is a ZIP bundle containing the image profiles available with the bundle and the metadata for each of the VIBs included in the bundle.
An offline bundle is available for download from VMware or from the OEM's website for use with ESXi Image Builder.