Create VM Clone via API crashes the VPXD service

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Using API calls to clone/relocate a virtual machine results in the VPXD service crashing. 

Environment

vCenter 8.0

Cause

The cloneSpec portion of the JSON payload is missing the location property that maps to the VirtualMachineRelocateSpec. Since the API request omitted location property from their JSON payload, VPXD instantiates a valid VirtualMachineCloneSpec C++ object in memory with property value to a NULL pointer (0x0) which is protected memory space and crashes the VPXD service. 

Resolution

"cloneSpec": {
                        "_typeName": "VirtualMachineCloneSpec",
                        "template": false,
                        "powerOn": false,
                        "location": { # <-- This will make relocateSpec non null and initialize other members to false.
                                "_typeName": "VirtualMachineRelocateSpec"
                        }
                }

 

Additional Information

This will be fixed in a future release of vCenter.

As of the writing of this article it affects vCenter 8.0U3i and older.