How can I create a server template to spawn new servers

deploymenttemplatevmware-esxivmware-vsphere

I have a couple of LAMP servers (on a VMware ESXi host) for projects built on top of the CodeIgniter PHP framework. To mimic the original dev server installation I set up those 2nd and 3rd servers by manually installing Ubuntu Server then packages for openssh, git, ftp, unzip, etc. then implementing my web and file structures… needless to say its time consuming and tedious to have to do this every single time I have new dev server to build up. Is there a way to make a template dev server or something and instantly spawn new dev servers based on it with all the items mentioned above in place? A method with or without built-in ESXi features would be fine.

Best Answer

In your case you can simple copy already installed web server virtual machine files or create base instalation configure it and then copy to another location. After copy you simple add copied machine to ESXi inventory start make all needed changes (host name ip etc) and that's all.

Here is simple tutorial how to clone wm in ESXi http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/vmware-esxi-clone-machine.html

It's simple but ypu must remember to turn off vritual machine to copy files.