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Quick Tip - Changes to building custom ESXi images in vSphere 8

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Historically, when a new version of ESXi is released, customers will use vSphere Image Builder either through the vSphere Image Builder UI or PowerCLI Image Builder cmdlets to create a custom ESXi image to include additional drivers such as the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling.

Note: The current version of the USB Network Native Driver for ESXi Fling is not compatible with ESXi 8.0 and a new version of the driver will be needed. There is currently no ETA on when a new version will be available.

Typically, customers will use their existing vCenter Server deployment, which is usually running an older version to create their new custom ESXi image. This means you are importing a newer ESXi release into your vCenter Server or in the case of the PowerCLI Image Builder cmdlets, you are using an older release of PowerCLI. While this may have worked with previous releases, the assumption that vSphere Image Builder is "forward" compatible with future releases of ESXi is actually an incorrect assumption that many have made, including myself.

I bring this up because in vSphere 8, there have been changes in ESXi where this incompatibility will be observed when attempting to create a custom ESXi 8.0 image using a non-compatible vCenter Server or a PowerCLI release.

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Using vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) API to patch group of ESXi hosts

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An interesting vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) question that has already come up a few times in the past two weeks is whether vLCM can remediate (patch/upgrade) a specific group of ESXi host(s)?

Today, there are two ways in which vLCM can remediate ESXi hosts within a vSphere Cluster. The first is to simply remediate all ESXi hosts within a vSphere Cluster using the Remediate All option.


If a user wishes to exclude specific ESXi host(s) from being remediated, then the only other option is to manually remediate each individual host. To do so, select an ESXi host from the list and then use the Remediate option in the Actions menu as shown in the screenshot below.


For a small environment, manual remediation might be okay for those willing to click through the vSphere UI but it is certainly less than ideal and you are also not taking advantage of the automation and orchestration that vLCM provides in the first place.

Luckily, there is a third option which is to use the vLCM REST API to specify the desired list of ESXi host(s) that want to patch/upgrade and best of all, this is fully automated!

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Is the vCenter Server Unique ID still important today?

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When I was a customer back in the day, one of my operational checklist items for deploying a vCenter Server was to configure the vCenter Server ID and ensure that it was unique from other vCenter Servers within my environment.


The vCenter Server ID is a value between 0-63 that is randomly generated by default, but it can updated by a user after the vCenter Server has been deployed.

Why should you care about the vCenter Server ID? vCenter Server uses this ID to generate Virtual Machine MAC Addresses and if two vCenter Servers have the same ID, it can potentially generate duplicate VM MAC Addresses as explained in this VMware KB 1024025.

With this background in mind, is having a unique vCenter Server ID still relavent and applicable today in 2022?

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