RHEL 10 Virtual Machine deployed from Content Library fails to auto-power on
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RHEL 10 Virtual Machine deployed from Content Library fails to auto-power on

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Article ID: 429610

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Updated On:

Products

VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

  • RHEL 10 Virtual Machine remains powered off after Content Library deployment
  • Guest OS Family defaults to "Other" and Version becomes blank following OVF deployment from Content Library.
    • Guest OS Family → Other
    • Guest OS Version → Blank in VM options
  • This issue is observed on virtual machines with virtual hardware versions 21 and below.

Environment

vCenter 8.x

Cause

This issue is caused by a metadata (guestId) mismatch between the RHEL 10 Guest OS identifier and the vCenter 8.x Content Library schema as vCenter 8.x does not recognize the guestId as rhel10_64Guest. When the Content Library encounters an unrecognized guestId during deployment, it defaults the Virtual Machine metadata to otherGuest. Because the Guest OS is flagged as "Other" and the version is undefined, the automated power-on task fails to initialize post-deployment.

rhel10_64Guest identifier is introduced in VCF 9.0 and vSphere 9.0, with Virtual Hardware Version 22.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, upgrade the environment to VCF 9.0 / vSphere 9.0 and update the Virtual Machine to Hardware Version 22 or later. This enables the official selection and upgrade path for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10

In scenarios where upgrading to VCF 9.0 or Hardware Version 22 is prevented by environmental or hardware constraints, the manual population of a valid guestId is required to facilitate a successful deployment from the Content Library.

  1. Manually Configure the Guest Identifier (guestId)

    • Log in to the console of the impacted RHEL 10 Virtual Machine.
    • Open the VMware Tools configuration file for editing (create it if it does not exist):
       vi /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
    • Add the following lines to the file to manually define the guest short-name:
       [guestosinfo]
       short-name=rhel10_64Guest
    • Save the file using 'Esc + :wq!' and press Enter to exit vi editor
    • Restart the VMware Tools service to apply the changes:
       systemctl restart vmtoolsd

  2. Verify and Sync Metadata

    • Monitor the Virtual Machine Summary page in the vSphere Client.
      Note: It may take several minutes for the inventory to refresh.
    • Verify that the Guest OS field updates to reflect a recognized identifier (such as RHEL Linux 9 (64-bit) or the corresponding RHEL 9 equivalent supported by your current vCenter version).

  3. Update the Content Library Template
    • Once the metadata is correctly displayed on the source Virtual Machine, Clone the Virtual Machine as an OVF into the Content Library.
    • Deploy a new Virtual Machine from this updated Template. The new deployment will now recognize the Guest OS and should power on automatically as expected.

Additional Information

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