Home-Lab: vCenter and DC's as a OVF along with ESXi configuration backup

Deathmage

Hey guys,

So I'm curious I use OVF's to make one massive portable backup of my home-lab cluster whenever I blow away my cluster, but I'm curious if this OVF template could also include vCenter and if so would it work correctly after re-installing ESXi on the hosts and restoring the OVF template?

Assuming of course I keep the vSwitch's all the same, would it work?

My other hurdle is keeping ESXi host(s) consistent; see I know there is a way to backup the ESXi configuration, link below, but how in the world would I back it up to say a USB drive? ...Setting up my ESXi hosts over and over again and making sure the vSS's are all the same is getting old fast.

Anyone know of a way?

https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2042141

iBrokeIT

Host profiles...

Deathmage

Want to do it more with the command line. Is there a way to do host profiles in command line?

I can do a OVA restore from command line just curious what the command sets in PowerCLi to make a backup to a flash drive, sometimes I wish I knew more powershell and linux.

joelsfood

https://nutzandbolts.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/automating-esxi-host-profiles-with-powercli/

Deathmage

joelsfood wrote: »

https://nutzandbolts.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/automating-esxi-host-profiles-with-powercli/

thanks!!!!