Creating custom ESXi images using vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) UI and PowerCLI cmdlets for vSphere 8

I have started to use vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) more and more, especially after upgrading to vSphere 8 as it will be the primary lifecycle management solution going forward for both vSphere image and configuration management.

The other reason for using vLCM is that vSphere Update Manager (VUM) baselines have also been deprecated in vSphere 8 and while you can still use it for now, it should not come as a surprise that VUM and its functionality will be removed in the future and all of its workflows including the use of vSphere Image Builder should also be transitioned over to using vLCM.

One of the most common and basic workflow for customers today is creating custom ESXi images (ISO or Offline Bundle) that includes additional ESXi drivers. Since vLCM is probably new to most folks (including myself), I wanted to share how you can create your own custom ESXi images using both the vLCM UI (which can be a bit non-intuitive) as well as the new PowerCLI cmdlets that was jus released today as part of PowerCLI 13.0 release that adds support for both vLCM and vSphere 8!

vLCM UI

Step 1 - In the upper left hand corner of the vSphere UI, navigate to Lifecycle Manager. If you need to import a new driver into vLCM depot, click on Actions->Import Updates and select the ESXi component driver (ZIP) that you wish to upload.

Step 2 - Since vLCM operates at a vSphere Cluster level, we are simply going to create a "dummy" vSphere Cluster that will be used to define our custom ESXi image. Make sure the "Manage all hosts in the cluster with a single image" option is selected which enables vLCM and then choose the "Compose a new image" setting.

Next, you need to specify the ESXi base image for the cluster, select ESXi 8.0 or any other version that desire.

Step 3 - During the creation of a vSphere Cluster, you can NOT add additional ESXi component drivers to ESXi base image, this must be done AFTER. If you need to associate additional ESXi component drivers, click on the vSphere Cluster and navigate to Updates->Hosts->Image and click on the Edit button. Here you can add additional vendor firmware and driver add-ons and underneath, you will see Components. Click on the Add Components and select the specific ESXi component(s) from the vLCM depot that you wish to add to ESXi base image.

Step 4 - Finally, to export our new custom ESXi image, click on the "three dots" and then select Export.

You can choose from ISO or an Offline Bundle ZIP, similar to what vSphere Image Builder supports today.

At this point, you now have your new custom ESXi ISO from vLCM!

vLCM PowerCLI

Step 0 - If you need to import a new driver into vLCM depot, unfortunately this functionality is not available in the new vLCM PowerCLI cmdlets. You will need to use the vLCM UI to perform this operation first

Step 1 - Connect to your vCenter Server using the Connect-VIServer cmdlet:

Connect-VIServer -Server vcsa.primp-industries.local -user administrator[at]vsphere[dot].local

Step 2- Define the ESXi base image name and ESXi components you wish to use. You can use the new Get-LcmImage cmdlet and pass specify -Type filter with either BaseImage or Component to get the specific name and/or version to populate the variables.

$datacenterName = "Primp-Datacenter"
$clusterName = "vLCM-Dummy-Cluster"
$esxiImageName = "8.0 GA - 20513097"
$esxiComponentName = "VMware USB NIC Fling Driver"
$esxiComponentVersion = "1.11-1vmw"

Step 3 - Using the variables defined above, we will now fetch the ESXi base image and ESXi component from vLCM depot using the Get-LcmImage cmdlet and save the output to two new variables which will be referenced in the next step.

$esxiBaseImage = Get-LcmImage -Type BaseImage -Version $esxiImageName
$esxiComponent = Get-LcmImage -Type Component | where {$_.Name -eq $esxiComponentName -and $_.Version -eq $esxiComponentVersion}

Step 4 - Next, we will create our "dummy" vSphere Cluster and associate that with our ESXi base image. Once the vSphere Cluster has been created, we will update it to associate the additional ESXi components and then finally we export to ISO using the new Export-LcmClusterDesiredState cmdlet.

New-Cluster -Name $clusterName -BaseImage $esxiBaseImage -Location (Get-Datacenter -Name $datacenterName)
Get-Cluster -Name $clusterName | Set-Cluster -Component @($esxiComponent) -BaseImage $esxiBaseImage -Confirm:$false
Export-LcmClusterDesiredState -Cluster (Get-Cluster -Name $clusterName) -ExportIsoImage

Once the process has completed, you will find both both an ISO and JSON file that has been exported from vLCM using the same name as your vSphere Cluster.