Setting the minimum vCenter Server permissions required to perform VMware Converter operations

Products

• VMware
• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

This article provides the steps to set the minimum privileges required for a user in vCenter Server to perform VMware Converter operations.

You may want to do this if:

• You want to set a custom permission role, so that the security policies are not compromised by giving that role additional privileges when that same task could be done without granting extra permissions in vCenter Server.
• You do not want to use an administrator account for performing VMware Converter operations.
• When trying to run a conversion, you see the error:
  "Unable to obtain hardware information with the selected machine."

Environment

VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.x
VMware vCenter Converter 4.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.0.x
VMware vCenter Server 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Converter 4.1.x
VMware vCenter Converter 4.2.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.5.x
VMware vCenter Server 5.1.x

Resolution

Configuring Permissions for vCenter Server Users

To convert virtual machines to vCenter Server machines with Converter Standalone, you must have certain vCenter Server permissions set at the data center level.

To start using Converter Standalone, you must set various minimum privileges at the data center level.

•  Datastore.Allocate space
•  Datastore.Browse datastore
•  Host.Local operations.Create virtual machine
•  Host.Local operations.Delete virtual machine
•  Host.Local operations.Reconfigure virtual machine
•  Network.Assign network (required only if you plan to connect the destination virtual machine to a network)
•  Resource.Assign virtual machine to resource pool
•  Virtual machine.Configuration
•  Virtual machine.Interaction.Power On (required only if you choose to power on the destination virtual machine after conversion)
•  Virtual machine.Inventory
•  Virtual machine.Provisioning.Allow disk access
•  Virtual machine.Provisioning.Allow read-only disk access

Converting Linux and powered on Windows machines might require additional vCenter Server privileges.

• Virtual machine.Interaction.Configure CD media (required only if you need to boot a converted Linux virtual machine to install media after the conversion) 
• Virtual machine.Snapshot management.Create snapshot (required only if you want to synchronize changes between the source and destination Windows virtual machine)
• Virtual machine.Snapshot management.Remove Snapshot (required only if you want to synchronize changes between the source and destination Windows virtual machine)

 

Supported Operating system platforms for VMware Converter Standalone 6.3

For more information on vSphere vCenter Server permissions and privileges, Refer: Using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.3