We can install a guest operating system in a VM and control guest operating system customisation for VMs by either running commands directly or, if deploying to vSphere-based cloud platforms, through customisation specifications.
In Aria Automation these commands are defined in a so-called cloudConfig resource property in the cloud template code which holds the commands that should be run. For customisation specifications on the other hand, a property in the cloud template code references a vSphere customisation specification by name.
In this post I’m going to show how to leverage Aria Automation cloudConfig to customise Ubuntu 22 and Windows Server 2022 VMs. Such customisation could include:
- Set the hostname
- Set the timezone
- Configure the network adapter
- Partition, format, mount hard disks
- Run arbitrary commands (e.g. join a domain)