Deploy VMs using Templates, customisation specs and POWERCLI

Who doesn’t love a bit of automation these days, I certainly like to use code snippets and shortcuts whenever I can.  Recently I’ve been deploying some VMs in my homelab and thought I would share some of the POWERCLI I use.

I have a Windows 2016 template stored in vCenter that I have recently patched and tweaked to my satisfaction and deploy that with a temporary customization spec to deploy and do the initial config (IP settings and domain join).

The key commands to use here to get the IP settings are

Get-OScustomizationNicMapping

Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping

Only started playing with these recently and they are very useful.

## Deploy New VM
## CT April 2019

## Define Variables

$VCCred = Get-Credential # vCenterCred
$DomCred = Get-Credential # Cred for adding VM to domain

$VC = "vc1.yourdomain.com" # vCenter
$VCTemplate = "Windows Server 2016 Template" # name of existing VM Template
$VMname = "NewVM" # New VM name
$Domain = "yourdomain.com" # Domain
$LocalAdmin = "Administrator" # Local Admin name of VM
$LocalAdminPW = "D3pl0yMyVMBaby!" # Local Admin pw
$OrgName = "OrgName" # Organisation
$VMIP = "192.168.0.101" #Desired IP of server
$VMSubnetMask = "255.255.255.0" #VM subnetmask
$VMDefaultGW = "192.168.0.1" #VM Default GW
$DNSServer1 = "192.168.0.110" #DNS Server1
$DNSServer2 = "192.168.0.120" #DNS Server2
$VMHost = "esx1.yourdomain.com" #Target Host
$Datastore = "vsandatastore" #Target Datastore

## Connect to vCenter

Connect-VIServer $VC -Credential $VCCred

## Create Customisation

$CustSpec = New-OSCustomizationSpec -OSType "Windows"`
-Name "TempSpec" -Type NonPersistent `
-NamingScheme vm `
-Domain $Domain -DomainCredentials $DomCred `
-FullName $LocalAdmin -AdminPassword $LocalAdminPW `
-AutoLogonCount 1 `
-OrgName $OrgName -Description "Temp Custom Spec for VM deployment" `
-TimeZone 085 -ChangeSid `
-ErrorAction Stop

## Set Network Properties

$IP =  @{OScustomizationNicMapping = Get-OSCustomizationNicMapping -OSCustomizationSpec $CustSpec}
$IP.IPMode = "UseStaticIP"
$IP.IPAddress = $VMIP
$IP.SubnetMask = $VMSubnetMask
$IP.DefaultGateway = $VMDefaultGW
$IP.dns = $DNSServer1,$DNSServer2

Set-OSCustomizationNicMapping @IP

## Deploy VM

$NewVM = New-VM -Name $VMname -Template $VCTemplate `
            -VMHost $VMHost `
            -Datastore $Datastore `
            -OSCustomizationSpec $CustSpec `
            -ErrorAction Stop 

## Power UP VM to complete customisation

Start-VM $VMname