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Jrt1general
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GuestOS Full and Family randomly empty

I'm attempting to gather details on VM guest OS and provide an easy way to sort Windows and Linux guests, so I want to gather the OS Full and OS Family into separate columns on a spreadsheet. I think I've run into an interesting bug here...

Starting with just a basic PowerCLI command to get the data on a folder of VMs I use for VMmark3. All happen to be CentOS VMs cloned from the same template file - configured (and verified) OS Class: Linux and OS Type CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) in the web client.

Get-VM -location Tile0 | Select Name,@{N="OS Full";E={$_.ExtensionData.Guest.guestFullName}},@{N="OS Family";E={$_.ExtensionData.Guest.guestFamily}}

Here's the output I get:

Name          OS Full                             OS Family

----          -------                             ---------

DS3DB0        CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit)             linuxGuest

AuctionMSQ0

AuctionAppA0

ElasticLB0    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

AuctionNoSQL0 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

DS3WebA0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit)             linuxGuest

AuctionAppB0

DS3WebB0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit)             linuxGuest

ElasticWebA0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

AuctionWebB0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

ElasticAppA0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

AuctionDB0    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

DS3WebC0

ElasticWebB0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

Standby0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit)             linuxGuest

AuctionLB0    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

AuctionWebA0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

ElasticDB0    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

ElasticAppB0  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit) linuxGuest

This is leaving me with large gaps of cells I need to fill in by hand and it doesn't really make sense as to why they would be empty. Let's pick on AuctionMSQ0 as it happens to be the top of the list of offenders.

get-vmguest AuctionMSQ0 | FL

results in:

OSFullName        :

IPAddress         : {}

State             : Running

Disks             :

HostName          :

Nics              :

ScreenDimensions  : {Width=800, Height=600}

VmId              : VirtualMachine-vm-265

VM                : AuctionMSQ0

VmUid             : /VIServer=vsphere.local\administrator@[redacted]:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-265/

VmName            : AuctionMSQ0

Uid               : /VIServer=vsphere.local\administrator@[redacted]:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-265/VMGuest=/

GuestId           :

ConfiguredGuestId : centos64Guest

RuntimeGuestId    :

ToolsVersion      :

ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.GuestInfo

GuestFamily       :

I've attached a snap of the VM settings to prove it's set correctly as far as I can see.

Any ideas?

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Jrt1general
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Ok, after a few minutes, the VM has updated... now it's reporting that it's running RHEL 7, when it's clearly not.

OSFullName        : Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)

IPAddress         : {10.X.X.X}

State             : Running

Disks             : {Capacity:14879293440, FreeSpace:6818304000, Path:/, Capacity:520794112, FreeSpace:155787264, Path:/boot,

                    Capacity:14879293440, FreeSpace:6818304000, Path:/tmp, Capacity:14879293440, FreeSpace:6818304000,

                    Path:/var/tmp}

HostName          : AuctionMSQ0

Nics              : {Network adapter 1:Dev_portgroup}

ScreenDimensions  : {Width=800, Height=600}

VmId              : VirtualMachine-vm-265

VM                : AuctionMSQ0

VmUid             : /VIServer=vsphere.local\administrator@[Redacted]:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-265/

VmName            : AuctionMSQ0

Uid               : /VIServer=vsphere.local\administrator@[Redacted]:443/VirtualMachine=VirtualMachine-vm-265/VMGuest=/

GuestId           : rhel7_64Guest

ConfiguredGuestId : centos64Guest

RuntimeGuestId    : rhel7_64Guest

ToolsVersion      :

ExtensionData     : VMware.Vim.GuestInfo

GuestFamily       : linuxGuest

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Jrt1general
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Reconfiguring for the config only and not relying on the Guest OS or Tools to report seems to help. This isn't ideal as it only reports what the VM is configured for - not what it's actually running. It's a workaround for now...

Get-VM -location Tile0 | Select Name,@{N="Config Full";E={$_.ExtensionData.config.guestFullName}},@{N="Config GuestID";E={$_.ExtensionData.config.guestID}}

Name          Config Full             Config GuestID

----          -----------             --------------

DS3DB0        CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionMSQ0   CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionAppA0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticLB0    CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionNoSQL0 CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

DS3WebA0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionAppB0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

DS3WebB0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticWebA0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionWebB0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticAppA0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionDB0    CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

DS3WebC0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticWebB0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

Standby0      CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionLB0    CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

AuctionWebA0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticDB0    CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

ElasticAppB0  CentOS 4/5/6/7 (64-bit) centos64Guest

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LucD
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The configured OS has no value whatsoever for reporting purposes, you can put whatever in there, and still install another guest OS.

Which vSphere version are you working with?

Are these VMs using the VMware Tools that come with ESXi or are they using the guest provided VMware Tools or the open-vm-tools?


Blog: lucd.info  Twitter: @LucD22  Co-author PowerCLI Reference

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