Specifying initial settings using the VMware ESXi Properties screen

The Properties screen is included in the Deploy OVF Template wizard if you connect to your ESXi host through VMware vCenter Server. Installing a Virtual Server using VMware ESXi provides information about the wizard screens.

Trellix recommends that you use the Properties screen to do at least the following:

Enter the activation code for your virtual server. The activation code contains many characters. The vSphere Client prevents you from pasting the activation code into the vSphere Client console, and it is easy to make a typing error.
Reset the password for the admin user, if password authentication will be used to log into the CLI or Web UI over the network. The password must be changed to a password that is at least eight characters long.

You can also use this screen to provide commands for configuration settings that the system will apply during the initial boot. This can be convenient if you have a large number of virtual servers to deploy, because you can create base sets of commands, and then customize them for each deployment.

Note

You can use the system virtual bootstrap reset command to reset the Properties screen values after the virtual server is deployed and running.

The following table describes the fields in the Properties screen.

Field	Description
Activation Code	The code you received in a secure email from Trellix that gives the virtual server its identity and access credentials.
Initial CLI commands	A Base64-encoded set of commands that at a minimum allow the server to connect to your network. To use this field, type the commands in plain-text format, encode them to Base64, and then paste the encoded string into this field. Consider using this field for network connectivity only, because the size of the string could become unwieldy. The string can be a maximum of 65,535 bytes, and cannot be line-wrapped.
Initial CLI commands URL	A URL that points to a file on your network (for example, `http://acme.com/operations/4500V_config.txt`). To use this field, create a text file that includes CLI commands that configure additional settings in plain-text format, and store the file on an HTTP server in your network. The virtual server needs network connectivity (which the commands in the Initial CLI commands field can establish) to access the file referenced in the URL.
Reset admin password	A password of at least eight characters. The initial `admin` password must be reset to allow the admin user to log into the CLI or Web UI over the network unless both of the following are true: The CLI commands being executed set an SSH authorized key for the admin use, which allows the admin to log in remotely without a password. You disable password login using the `username admin disable password` command.

After you have specified these initial settings on the Properties screen, access the virtual server console and run the configuration wizard to complete the configuration of the virtual machine. See Initial Configuration Using the VMware ESXi Appliance Console and Configuration Wizard Steps.