VM BIOS UUIDs are not unique when virtual machines are deployed from vApp templates

Products

VMware Cloud Director

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

When using VMware Cloud Director, multiple virtual machines in vCenter Server have the same BIOS UUID.
This issue is seen when editing the .vmx file of a virtual machine.

For example:

uuid.bios = "## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##"

Cause

In the default system configuration, all virtual machines that are created when you deploy a vApp template or an OVF upload are assigned the same BIOS UUID.

Resolution

This behavior is controlled by a system configuration value named CloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy on VMware Cloud Director.

1 (true) means to keep the existing BIOS UUID, and is the default value.
0 (false) means to generate a new BIOS UUID.

You can use the manage-config subcommand of the cell-management-tool to view or set the value of this property. To retrieve the current value of this property, use the command:

$VCLOUD_HOME/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config --lookup --name backend.cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy

Property "backend.cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy" has value "1".

To set this property to a value of 0, use the command:

$VCLOUD_HOME/bin/cell-management-tool manage-config -n backend.cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy -v 0

Updating property: Property "backend.cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy" has value "0".

Note:Restart of the Cloud Director cells in the server group after you make this change is not required in the latest Cloud director 10.x versions.

Note: This change does not affect previously existing virtual machines. Also, note that backend.cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy should be 0 for vSAN environments as vSAN health checking has a requirement for unique bios.uuids. Duplicate bios.uuids will give false positives for vsan.check_state find_inconsistent_vms.

Note: Post setting cloneBiosUuidOnVmCopy parameter to 0 , Copy vApp operation would change BIOS UUID on the destination virtual machine as a clone task is initiated on vCenter Server.

Starting vCD 9.0 a new optimized implementation of the Move operation is introduced, refer to the Developer Documentation for additional details.

Workaround:
Any of the following workarounds can be used to update the BIOS UUID for existing VMs:

Workaround 1: Manually removing the bios UUID from vmx file

1. Power OFF the vApp in Cloud director UI
2. Make a note of the cluster and resource pool of the VM in vcenter.
3. Remove VM from inventory.
4. Edit vmx-file and remove all lines starting with uuid.bios
5. Register VM again to the correct resource pool
6. Power ON the vApp from Cloud director UI

Workaround 2: Using cloneVApp API to set RegenerateBiosUuid.

Note: Source VM might have to be shutdown to carry out the clone operation.

POST /vdc/{id}/action/cloneVApp

Update the lines between <root:VmGeneralParams>...</root:VmGeneralParams> to set the regenerate UUID option.

<root:SourcedItem>
<root:Source href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vApp/vm-<VM_UUID>"/>
<root:VmGeneralParams>
<root:RegenerateBiosUuid>true</root:RegenerateBiosUuid>
</root:VmGeneralParams>
<root:InstantiationParams>

Workaround 3: Using instantiateVAppTemplate API to set RegenerateBiosUuid.

POST /vdc/{id}/action/instantiateVAppTemplate

Update the lines between <root:VmGeneralParams>...</root:VmGeneralParams> to set the regenerate UUID option.

<root:SourcedItem>
<root:Source href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/vAppTemplate/<VM_UUID>"/>
<root:VmGeneralParams>
<root:Name>vmname</root:Name>
<root:RegenerateBiosUuid>true</root:RegenerateBiosUuid>
</root:VmGeneralParams>
<root:InstantiationParams>