"Reprovision" deletes the machine and does not reprovision?

[pwmiller]

What's up with this?

This afternoon I was testing the following process:

• Deploy Linux machine successfully, got machine deployed successfully.
• Changed the blueprint under Infrastructure –
  Machines – Managed Machines to Windows DEV/Test
• Changed the associated reservation for compute
  and storage
  • At this point, the machine appears to be a Windows machine, although it is still
    running Linux.
• Ran the ‘reprovision’ operation, which succeeded
  immediately… after having deleted the machine.

Obviously this is bad. Has anybody else seen the "reprovision" functionality delete their VM? I'm thinking of using this for cases where an application has been deployed with one OS, that needs to be tested on another keeping all of the security rules in tact (eg. firewalls for specific IPs that were allocated for that specific deployment).

Thanks,

[stvkpln]

Ok, so... why would you change the underlying blueprint?

A reprovision operation is going to run the VM through the associated disposing stub workflow, then subsequently, provision the VM based on the existing custom properties associated with the VM. What behavior were you expecting to occur when you reprovisioned the server?

[pwmiller]

So stvkpln, as I indicated earlier, a user deployed a VM using a Linux blueprint, then setup a whole bunch of associated infrastructure and firewall rules to that deployment. Now a vendor has turned around and said: "oh, hey, our Linux version doesn't have all the features of our Windows version, so you should use the Windows version!"

At this point, we say, "no problem, we have the ability to change a blueprint for this deployment, then reprovision it".

But when we click reprovision and alter the associated custom properties of the deployment, we see that the VM is deleted, but not reprovisioned. It is just deleted!

Maybe we should open an SR.

[stvkpln]

Can you confirm if reprovisioning works if you don't change the blueprint? That would be a first step in determining possible points of error. Keep in mind that reprovisioning will keep all existing custom properties, both user selectable in the form and hidden from the existing request (like the cloneFrom value), so... this may not be the behavior you want anyhow.

Is there a specific reason you want to go about making this so operationally heavy? Wouldn't it be easier just to remove the Linux VM and request the WIndows VM without going through the cumbersome process of changing blueprints and having to deal with all of the custom property malaise that -- if you're setup anything like me -- comes from having a disconnect between two implicitly different operating system platforms?