VMware Communities: Force create new UUID for VM ...

115 posts since
Jan 25, 2008

Hi,

Our co. started using ESXi a few months ago and its been great, I understand that there isn't the template feature available in ESXi because its part of vCentre. So to get around this what we;ve done is build a default VM and duplicate its directory within the ESXi storage and then add as a new VM to get around it.

Recently we built a second ESXi and used the same approach and found that sometimes we don't get the GUI prompting if we want to create a new UUID and the result is we get VMs with the same UUID and MAC addresss.

Is there some way we can force when we add the new VM derived from duplicating a directory to prompt to ask if we want to create a new UUID for the VM such that we don't get duplicate UUID and MAC addresses. I've done some reading of the posts here and found there's a setting in the "vmx" file something like;

contain uuid.action "create" / "keep" but I can't seem to find that in the VM we created;

config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "4"
floppy0.present = "true"
nvram = "test.nvram"
deploymentPlatform = "windows"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"
powerType.powerOff = "default"
powerType.powerOn = "default"
powerType.suspend = "default"
powerType.reset = "default"

displayName = "test"
extendedConfigFile = "test.vmxf"

numvcpus = "2"
scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.sharedBus = "none"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
memsize = "2048"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.fileName = "test.vmdk"
scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
sched.scsi0:0.shares = "normal"
ide0:0.present = "true"
ide0:0.clientDevice = "true"
ide0:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
ide0:0.startConnected = "false"
floppy0.startConnected = "false"
floppy0.fileName = "/dev/fd0"
floppy0.clientDevice = "true"
ethernet0.present = "true"
ethernet0.networkName = "QualysGuard"
ethernet0.addressType = "vpx"
guestOSAltName = "Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-bit)"
guestOS = "winNetStandard"
annotation = "- Win2K3 system template updated on 10 Feb 2009|0A- C: 5GB volume|0A- Standard Windows Hardening|0A- McAfee engine 5300|0A- NBU 6.0MP4 backup client (disabled)|0A|0A^ ET QualysGuard vLan|0A ip 10.150.8.242 |0A ms 255.255.255.248|0A gw 10.150.8.241|0A"
uuid.bios = "50 39 8d 60 69 ca bd a7-23 4d c4 70 19 d6 0c 43"
log.fileName = "vmware.log"
snapshot.action = "keep"
sched.cpu.min = "0"
sched.cpu.units = "mhz"
sched.cpu.shares = "normal"
sched.mem.minsize = "0"
sched.mem.shares = "normal"
toolScripts.afterPowerOn = "true"
toolScripts.afterResume = "true"
toolScripts.beforeSuspend = "true"
toolScripts.beforePowerOff = "true"

scsi0:0.redo = ""
scsi0:1.redo = ""
scsi0:3.redo = ""
vmware.tools.requiredversion = "7299"