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What's about

When we create a new blueprint for deploying a VM, it will get a name something like Cloud_Machine_1-mcmxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx', but most of cases we would not like this name, unless we prefer this name with Infrastructure as Code to avoid name clash. Let's take a look what we can do with the computer names.

Resources name

The first option is we use Machine objects on the design canvas in vRA Cloud Assembly, all we need to do is rename resources name to the prefix we want.

blueprint image After the deployment, vm name in vCenter is:

image

Another option is to add the name property to the resources in the YAML file, for insance the prefix you would like is myVM, the vm will now be named myVM-mcmxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxas shown bellow:

image

After the deployment, vm name in vCenter is:

image

Projects Provisioning Template

*Custom Naming Template will substitue the auto-genearted machine names, we need make sure that the virtualmachine name is unique, otherwise the deployment may fail if a machine with the same name already exists.Number generator: add digits to generated names to make them unique. ${####} adds 4 digits. This proposal is each Project will have one unique ID as prefix, this unique prifex will be used as part of the virtualmachine/computername/hostname. For instance the unique ID for human resource project can be hr, finance project can be fin, or it can line up with department ID, like its stands for IT service. As we would like to keep the hostname within 15 charaters, so best keep this part 3 characters? We can use custom properties assigned to the resource (from cloud template, project, etc.). I would suggest with ${resource.serverType}, so an enum added in the inputs to the blueprint will be ideal, something likt this

      - App
      - Web
      - DB

Let's see put the template like this ${resource.prefix}-${resource.serverType}-${####}

vCenter image

blueprint looks like this

formatVersion: 1
inputs:
  computerName:
    type: string
    maxLength: 15
    description: ComputerName / Hostname
    title: Computer Name
  vm-size:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Small
      - Medium
    description: Size of the virtualmachine
    title: VirtualMachine Size
  vm-image:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Windows2019
      - template-RHEL8
    description: Select OS image
  serverType:
    type: string
    enum:
      - App
      - Web
      - DB
    description: Select OS image
resources:
  Cloud_Machine_1:
    type: Cloud.Machine
    properties:
      serverType: '${input.serverType}'
      image: '${input.vm-image}'
      flavor: '${input.vm-size}'
      computerName: '${input.computerName}'

VM deployed to vcneter

vCenter image

fin-Web-0304 I can see this is a finance web server.

Static hostname

Dynamic hostname/computerName is perfectly fine when we do some kind of DevOps, and frequently deploy and terminate VMs, but some cases we would like a STATIC hostname, we need give the server a hostname, then deploy the virtual machine. We can use ABX(Action Based Extensibility) to achive this. NOTE: You can refe about all the events from vmware here

  • In vRA Cloud Assembly select the Extensibility tab, under Library click on Actions. Click New Action.
def handler(context, inputs):
    old_name = inputs["resourceNames"][0]
    new_name = inputs["customProperties"]["computerName"]
    outputs = {}
    outputs["resourceNames"] = inputs["resourceNames"]
    outputs["resourceNames"][0] = new_name
    print("Setting machine name from {0} to {1}".format(old_name, new_name))
    return outputs

new_name = inputs["customProperties"]["computerName"] we will use computerName 'customProperties' as the computer name, so computerName will be the virtualmachine in vCenter as well. See the Blueprint below:

formatVersion: 1
inputs:
  computerName:
    type: string
    maxLength: 15
    description: ComputerName / Hostname
    title: Computer Name
  vm-size:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Small
      - Medium
    description: Size of the virtualmachine
    title: VirtualMachine Size
  vm-image:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Windows2019
      - RHEL8
    description: Select OS image
  serverType:
    type: string
    enum:
      - App
      - Web
      - DB
    description: Select OS image
resources:
  Cloud_Machine_1:
    type: Cloud.Machine
    properties:
      serverType: '${input.serverType}'
      image: '${input.vm-image}'
      flavor: '${input.vm-size}'
      computerName: '${input.computerName}'

  • Next we need subscripe Computer Allocation event, so the Action will be triggered to get the computer name right for us. Extensibility | Click Subscriptions | New Subscription

  • Enter a Name and select Compute Allocation as Event Topic. Action/workflow select the Action we created , on this case is RenameVM

  • swich on condition and set event.data.blueprintId == '86c2fe64-4c39-4aa4-ad92-076d4b96dd9a' '86c2fe64-4c39-4aa4-ad92-076d4b96dd9a' is the Blueprint ID, so this subscription only works with the Blueprint ID we specified.

vCenter image

Let's build deploy the VM with the Blueprint

vCenter image

In vCenter

vCenter image

CloudInit to set hostname

  1. Unix
  2. Windows

windows

How to install Cloudbase-Init is here

cloudbase-init.conf

[DEFAULT]  
username=Administrator  
groups=Administrators  
inject_user_password=false  
first_logon_behaviour=no  
config_drive_raw_hhd=false  
config_drive_cdrom=false  
config_drive_vfat=false  
bsdtar_path=C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\bin\bsdtar.exe  
mtools_path=C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\bin\  
verbose=true  
debug=true  
logdir=C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\log\  
logfile=cloudbase-init.log  
default_log_levels=comtypes=INFO,suds=INFO,iso8601=WARN,requests=WARN  
logging_serial_port_settings=  
mtu_use_dhcp_config=true  
ntp_use_dhcp_config=true  
local_scripts_path=C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\LocalScripts\  
metadata_services=cloudbaseinit.metadata.services.vmwareguestinfoservice.VMwareGuestInfoService,cloudbaseinit.metadata.services.ovfservice.OvfService 
plugins=cloudbaseinit.plugins.common.userdata.UserDataPlugin,cloudbaseinit.plugins.common.sethostname.SetHostNamePlugin
allow_reboot=true

blueprint

formatVersion: 1
inputs:
  computerName:
    type: string
    maxLength: 15
    description: ComputerName / Hostname
    title: Computer Name
  vm-size:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Small
      - Medium
    description: Size of the virtualmachine
    title: VirtualMachine Size
  vm-image:
    type: string
    enum:
      - Windows2019
      - RHEL8
      - win19
    description: Select OS image
  serverType:
    type: string
    enum:
      - App
      - Web
      - DB
    description: Select OS image
resources:
  virtualmachine:
    type: Cloud.Machine
    properties:
      serverType: '${input.serverType}'
      image: '${input.vm-image}'
      flavor: '${input.vm-size}'
      computerName: '${input.computerName}'
      cloudConfig: |
        #cloud-config          
        set_hostname: '${input.computerName}'

Let test a deployment with the blueprint:

vCenter image

Deployment was successful, and here is what virtualmachine name in vCenter vCenter image

Login to windows, Computer name changed as below:

vCenter image