UEFI Boot Mode Support Matrix for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Components.

Products

• VMware SDDC Manager / VCF Installer

Issue/Introduction

Users may inquire about the supportability of UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) boot mode across various VMware and VCF products, including vCenter Server, NSX Manager, SDDC Manager, and Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations).

Environment

• VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 4.x / 5.x
• VMware NSX-T / NSX 4.x
• VMware vCenter Server 7.x / 8.x
• VMware Aria Operations / Logs

Resolution

UEFI support varies by component. Refer to the table below for the current support status of virtual appliances:

 

 

Component	Support Status	Notes
vCenter Server Appliance	Supported	Supported for both BIOS and UEFI boot modes.
NSX Manager / Edge (Virtual)	Not Supported	Virtual appliances must use Legacy BIOS. Changing to EFI will cause a boot failure.
NSX Edge (Bare Metal)	Supported	Supports both Legacy BIOS and UEFI modes.
SDDC Manager	Not Supported	Standard deployment uses BIOS-based virtual appliances.
Aria Operations / Logs	Not Supported	Virtual appliances are pre-configured with BIOS legacy boot settings.
Application VMs	Supported	Support depends on the Guest OS and Virtual Hardware version (version 13+ recommended).

Additional Information

Important Considerations for NSX

NSX virtual appliances (Manager and Edge) come with a pre-installed operating system configured specifically for BIOS legacy boot. There are currently no plans to support EFI boot for these virtual appliances in upcoming releases.