You can use a hardware profile to deploy an operating system on one or more servers in the Bare Metal Orchestrator cluster.
Upload the operating system media to Bare Metal Orchestrator and set the media attributes, see Create operating system media.
CAUTION: Before deploying an operating system on servers using Bare Metal Orchestrator, ensure that the ISO filename contains at least four hyphens and that the ISO filename does not contain restricted characters ( / < > | : &) for Linux-based filenames. For example, change rhel-8.4-x86_64-dvd.iso to rhel-8.4-x86-64-dvd.iso.
From the left-side menu, select Deployment > Hardware Profile.
Do one of the following:
Select the check box next to the hardware profile that you want to edit, and then from the Actions drop-down list, select Edit.
From the Actions drop-down list, select Create to create a hardware profile.
The Edit Hardware Profile window displays.
Note: For a new hardware profile, enter a hardware profile name. Configure the other attributes (such as the BIOS) before deploying the operating system.
From the Operating System field, click Add OS.
From the OS Name drop-down list, select the operating system media.
The system displays these OS-specific details:
To edit the operating system attributes, click View configuration meta data.
A window opens that is populated with configuration metadata for the selected operating system. Configuration metadata includes DHCP settings, and other user-configurable attributes that you can add or edit with the web UI.
In the configuration metadata window, enter the root password for the server where the operating system is being deployed.
Continue to edit other attributes such as IP addresses, DHCP or static networking, and such. When you are done editing, click Ok.
For tables that list the configurable attribute settings for each operating system, see Operating system settings.
Note: If static IP address assignment is used, you can only use the hardware profile to target one server.
CAUTION: Do not check Overwrite Installation when performing an ESXi operating system upgrade. If you check this option, it removes the current operating system installation and installs a new operating system. This can result in data loss.
CAUTION: If the target server is deployed in a non-DHCP environment, do not enable DHCP when installing the operating system. The operating system installation will fail.
Optional: Check to upgrade from one version of ESXi to another version. Only use this checkbox for ESXi upgrades. The default setting is cleared.
CAUTION: The new version of ESXi is installed and wipes out any current installation if the required OS is not the same as the installed operating system. This also occurs if Bare Metal Orchestrator did not previously install an operating system on this server.
Select the target installation location by specifying either the drive priority or the Fully Qualified Device Descriptor (FQDD).
Drive Priority is selected by default. Specify the drive priority by adjusting the order of drive types. Click the corresponding up and down arrows to arrange the drives in order of priority.
SDCARD—Secure Digital Memory Card
NVMe—Non-Volatile Memory Express
RAID—Redundant Array of Independent Disks
Note: Specify the RAID volume name in the RAID field.
HBA—Host Bus Adapter
BOSS—Boot Optimized Server Storage
SRAID
Specify a drive by name by selecting the Drive Name [FQDD] radio button and entering the FQDD for the drive.