Could anyone explain the difference between the 'vc.uuid' and 'uuid.bios' entries in the guest .vmx file? Specifically, what is the 'vc.uuid' represent, and how does it get generated?
vCenter/Virtual Center server has a unique UUID which is located in the instance.cfg file located at %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\instance.cfg
UUID.bios is the unique ID for the virtual machine, these Id's are used for the several Virtual Infrastructure tasks.
hope this helps !!
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f-10
VCP3, VCP4, HPCP, HP UX CSA
I see the 'instance uuid' in the 'instance.cfg' file, but it doesn't match the 'vc.uuid' in the guest's .vmx file. Also, this vc.uuid doesn't change even when registering the VM to a different vCenter server alltogether.
Excerpt from .vmx file:
uuid.location = "56 4d 64 d9 e6 90 39 30-49 5e 80 80 55 e2 8e 9f"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 64 d9 e6 90 39 30-49 5e 80 80 55 e2 8e 9f"
vc.uuid = "52 c8 86 91 d0 2b 2e 54-06 e8 7a 0e 0a 6a ff 0b"
From what I have seen in the past vc.uuid is generated when VM is added to VC and my apologies for the previous comment the VC UUID in the instance.cfg should not match with vc.uuid in the VM. The vc.uuid is generated every time a virtual machine is added to vCenter.
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f-10.
VCP3, VCP4, HPCP, HP UX CSA
True, it does look like it's generated with the guest is added to vCenter, however this uuid doesn't change, even when the guest is un-registered from it's original vCenter, and re-registered on a completely different one.
VMware uses two UUIDs to identify a VM. One is BIOS UUID given by your ESXi Host and Instance UUID(vc.uuid) given by your Vcenter.
Just had a case hen both (or even four entries) have been the same for two VMs in two different vCenters:
uuid.bios
vc.uuid
scsi0.sasWWID
ethernet0.generatedAddress
It was achieved by just copying VM to another vCenter and adding it from the storage to the inventory. Such operations makes lots of problems:)