Cannot edit and save Host Profile

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When creating a Host Profile by extracting it from an ESXi host and subsequently attempting to edit the profile, the task fails. 

The error is specifically triggered within the Networking configuration for Standard Switches (vSwitch1).

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 8.0U3

vCenter Server 8.x

Cause

The Host Profile extraction process occasionally fails to populate the <numPorts> property for Standard Switches in the underlying XML schema, leading to a validation failure during the edit or compliance check phase

Resolution

To resolve the missing parameter error, the Host Profile must be manually updated to ignore or explicitly define the port configuration:

1. Navigate to Host Profiles: Log in to the vSphere Client and go to Policies and Profiles> Host Profiles.
2. Edit Host Profile:Right-click the affected Host Profile and select Edit Settings.
3. Locate vSwitch Configuration:
      Expand Networking configuration
      Expand Host virtual switch
      Select the specific switch reporting the error (e.g., vSwitch1).
4. Modify Port Selection:
     Look for the Determining how number of ports is computed dropdown or policy.
     Change the policy to User must explicitly choose the number of ports, if you wish to set a value, or ensure the default is set to a standard value (e.g., 128).
     If the option is entirely missing or greyed out, uncheck the box for vSwitch1 to exclude it from the profile temporarily, save the profile, and then re-enable it to force a refresh of the parameters.
5. Save and Remediate: Save the profile and perform a new Check Profile Compliance

Additional Information

 If the UI does not allow modification, the Host Profile may need to be exported as a `.vpf` (XML) file, manually edited to include the `<numPorts>` tag within the vSwitch section, and re-imported.

 

To prevent this on future extractions, run the following command on your reference host to verify the current configured ports:

esxcli network vswitch standard list -v vSwitch1

Change the `Configured Ports` value to what is expected. 
Example: 128  Max is 4096