Force addition of VM from Datastore to a specific Host in a Cluster

[Bob2424]

So we have an older vCenter that has hosts running on fumes, and I'm moving a VM from one vCenter to another. I'm trying to add a server to the inventory in the newer vCenter, but I'm having issues. 3 of the 8 servers in my cluster are 5.1, and the others are 4.0 (terrible setup, I know, but there's not much I can do about it because we don't really have the space to clear and upgrade them all). When adding to inventory it keeps adding it to the 4.0 hosts, but the VM is a VM Version 9, so it shows up as invalid, and I'm not able to vMotion it to one of the correct hosts at that point. Is there any way to force the inventory add to a specific host in the cluser?

[TheBobkin · Accepted solution]

Hello,

This can be achieved by getting an SSH to the host and using:

# vim-cmd solo/registervm <path to .vmx> (e.g. /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreName/VMName/VMname.vmx)

Or alternatively you could connect the vSphere Client directly to one of the hosts (as opposed to vCenter) and register it from here.

Disable HA if it keeps moving the VM off this host or set up some affinity-rule.

Bob

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