Customizing VMware guests created from templates

[pim...@gmail.com]

Jenkins 1.6.35

VCenter 5.5

VSphere  5.5

Windows Server 2012 R2

Hi,

I am currently attempting to automate all of the manual steps involved with provisioning new servers and deploying our applications to those servers.

What normally happens is that we login to Vcenter via vsphere client, select the appropriate template, and deploy a VM using that template. As part of that process, we choose to customize the OS using an existing Customization Specification.

I have had success deploying a VM from a template using the VSphere Cloud plug-in. The problem is that there does not appear to be a way to run the customization portion (e..g. generate unique SID) of that process via the plug-in. I have searched for ways to execute those VMware Cust Specs remotely, but no luck so far.

At this point I am pursuing creating custom sysprep answer files, and using those to complete the OS customization portion of the process (e.g. create the vm as a vcloud slave and run sysprep on the server).

1) Anyone know how to use the VMware customization specification files via Jenkins (specifically via the vsphere cloud plug-in)?

2) If not, any suggestions on using custom sysprep answer files via Jenkins (e.g. some other plug-in)?

3) Other solutions I can use with Jenkins to accomplish this task?

Thanks,

pimy

[pim...@gmail.com]

I was able to use PowerCLI to get this to work. It allows you to specify which customization specification you want to use when you deploy from a template.

Cheers,

pimy