Understanding the Misc.HordeEnabled Advanced Setting and its behavior in vSphere Configuration Profiles (Desired State)

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The advanced setting Misc.HordeEnabled is visible and modifiable via the ESXi Advanced System Settings UI or CLI.
• When extracting a configuration from a reference host to create a vSphere Configuration Profile (Desired State), the Misc.HordeEnabled parameter is missing from the resulting JSON document.
• Users are unable to manage or enforce the value of Misc.HordeEnabled at the cluster level using the Desired State framework.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server

VMware vSphere ESXi

Cause

Misc.HordeEnabled is a system-level deployment marker used to identify the host's provisioning method:

• Value 1: The host was deployed via vSphere Auto Deploy.
• Value 0: The host was installed manually or via a local disk.

While this setting can be manually modified on an individual host, it is intentionally excluded from the vSphere Configuration Profiles (Desired State) and Host Profiles extraction logic. This design ensures that a deployment marker from a reference host is not inadvertently forced onto other hosts in a cluster, which may have different provisioning origins (e.g., a mix of Auto Deploy and manually installed hosts).

Resolution

It is recommended to maintain the system-assigned value for Misc.HordeEnabled to ensure accurate metadata regarding the host's deployment type.

• To verify the current value on a host:

1: Connect to the ESXi host via SSH. 

esxcfg-advcfg -g /Misc/HordeEnabled 

Or: 

2: Navigate to the Host > Configure > System > Advanced System Settings to filter Misc.HordeEnabled

• To modify the value (if required):

1: Modification must be performed at the individual host level as this setting cannot be managed via cluster-wide configuration profiles: 

   esxcfg-advcfg -s [0|1] /Misc/HordeEnabled

2: Via vSphere Client:

• • • • Navigate to the Host > Configure > System > Advanced System Settings.
      • Click Edit and search for Misc.HordeEnabled.
      • Change the value and click OK.
• Behavior in Desired State:

The absence of this parameter in the extracted Cluster Configuration (JSON) is by design. Do not attempt to manually inject this parameter into the JSON profile, as it is not part of the managed configuration schema.