When restoring a virtual machine to a vSphere Supervisor namespace using Dell PPDM or other third-party backup solutions, the VM is not automatically claimed by the VM Service.

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service

Issue/Introduction

When restoring a virtual machine to a vSphere Supervisor namespace, the VM is restored to the namespace as expected but fails to be managed by the VM service.

Symptoms include:

• In the vSphere Client VMs & Templates view, the restored VM does not appear under any folder.

• The VM is not visible in VCFA for the Namespace

• The VM is not listed when running kubectl get virtualmachine -n NS

Environment

vCenter Server 9.x

Cause

The VM Service fails to automatically register VMs if they are restored to a folder outside of the specific Supervisor namespace folder hierarchy or if required ExtraConfig keys are missing during the restore process.

Resolution

 To force the VM Service to manage the restored virtual machine:

1. Log in to the vSphere Client.
2. Select the restored virtual machine.
3. Initiate a migration (Relocate) of the VM.
4. Target the same Supervisor namespace and resource pool where the VM currently resides.
5. Complete the migration to trigger the VM Service discovery logic.

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