A while back I posted that 5.0 U2 re-introduced the renaming behavior for VM file names. I was just informed by our excellent Support Team that unfortunately the release notes missed something crucial and Storage vMotion does not rename files by default. In order to get the renaming behavior you will have to set an advanced setting within vCenter.. This is how you do it:
- Go to “Administration”
- Click on “vCenter Server Settings”
- Click “Advanced Settings”
- Add the key “provisioning.relocate.enableRename” with value “true” and click “add”
- Restart vCenter service or vCenter Server
Now the renaming of the files during the SvMotion process should work again!
All of you who need this functionality, please make sure to add this advanced setting.
Rasmus Haslund says
Hi Duncan,
Great post!
Does this advanced option also work for ESXi 5.1?
Duncan Epping says
No, only fixed in U2. Will be added to a 5.1 update pack soon.
Joyce says
Hi Duncan,
Informative as usual.
Had a really unusal Interview for a Job. I was asked if I follow any Virtualization Blogs I said Yes Yellow-Bricks. Next Question was ok “then what is the Latest topic he blogged about last night.
I said apologies but I did not read the blog this morning. To which they said Do you actually follow the blog.”
Then i was asked if i follow you on Twitter…. I do but – I didnt get the Job lol but I enjoyed it. 🙂
Andrew S says
How weird. You read the blog, but not frequently enough to get the job!?
Joyce says
Humm what can I say !! I am only human !!
Duncan Epping says
That is probably one of the strangest interviews I have heard about 🙂
I hope you will have more luck next time.
Joyce says
Thank you Duncan.
plopi says
So great, I was missing the feature !
Thanks for the tip.
Troy Clavell says
tested multiple times in the lab… fix works! Thank you sir!
Fouad says
Hey,
That fix was missing me. Somoene did it try on 5.0 U1 ?
Arjan says
We talked about this today during a vSphere Design workshop training. I just told this feature was back in u2 and half an hour later you posted this…. Made me look bad 😉
I shared the link to your site so they can take this action in account if needed. Thanks for the information
Marco says
I was also beating my head against the wall because it did not work despite of U2…now it does. Many thanks 🙂
udubplate says
It is extremely disappointing that this wasn’t returned to being enabled by default. There is really no logical reason someone wouldn’t want it to behave like that.
karlochacon says
same thing it should be enable by default…
Andi says
Hi,
is this advanced settings supported? As it is not possible to delete the key from the advanced settings I am not sure if I want to use it in my production environment…
Regards
Andi
Duncan says
Yes it is officially supported.
Rubeck says
Excellent question, Andi.. 😉
/Rubeck
thatITguy says
So when I add this value, it gets changed from “provisioning.relocate.enableRename” to “config.provisioning.relocate.enableRename”, is this the expected behaviour? When trying to script this with powershell it also fails unless I add the “config.” in front
Example: get-advancedsetting -entity $defaultVIServer -name “provisioning.relocate.enableRename” | set-advancedsetting -value true -confirm:$false
Duncan says
Correct, expected behavior.
Sri says
Does this Key “provisioning.relocate.enableRename” works for VMware VirtualCenter 5.0.0 build-455964 version ?
Duncan Epping says
5.0 U2 is the requirement as mentioned in the blog post.
Daniel Baby says
Hi Duncan,
thank you for this hint. But global question: Is it today (vSphere 5.1) not possible to edit Advanced Parameters within the WebClient? I get always a white caracters on white Screen ;-(
Duncan Epping says
it works fine here… weird
Todd says
I am trying to figure out what is the importance of the renaming feature?
I think I am missing something
Please elaborate.
Todd
Duncan Epping says
If you rename your VM in vCenter the filename on the VMFS doesn’t change. Just imagine something happens with your VM and you need to troubleshoot it on the command-line how do you know which one it is? So people use SvMotion to rename the virtual machine files by moving it to a different datastore.
This functionality was removed, but now introduced again.
Christian says
Can anyone come up with a good reason why it was removed in the first place?
I’m thinking there must be a (good?) reason – and if there is, what are the drawbacks of re-enabling the feature?
Dave says
Worked for all files except the .nvram file. Is that expected behavior?
Sascha says
Hi,
it’s not working with vCenter 5.1 (Build 947673). Doesn’t matter if the value is set or not. 🙁
Duncan Epping says
No it doesn’t indeed. Fix will make it in to an update as indicated in a comment above
Sascha says
Thank You for confirming.
Chris Horn says
Hey Duncan – looks like this change made it in to ESXi 5.1 Update 1. Good stuff!
Andy says
In the documentation it says that the original problem was due to a limitation in Storage DRS in vCenter 5.0 that needed the files and folders to remain the same on moves to keep track of servers SDRS stats. Somehow they figured out to use a UUID or other form of ID in the U2 release (no needed to track folder/file names). Then they used the same old code block for SDRS from 5.0 and broke it again in 5.1! LOL Obviously 5.1 U1 fixes it… again.
A.B. says
I can confirm that this does NOT work on vCenter Server 5.1.0b aka 947673
We will be upgrading our environment to 5.1 update 1.a and reposting.
-A.B.
New York, NY
Greenwich, CT
aleg says
Just tried this with vCenter Server 5.1.0 build 947673. Will not rename files, even with provisioning.relocate.enableRename = true.
vCenter Server 5.1.0 build 1123961 is renaming files correctly. Last week, downloads from vmWare were ridiculously slow…less than 300Kbps. That was a no-go for a 3.4GB ISO.
Today, we’re getting them at 16-17MB/sec. Took just a few minutes.
Raj says
Thanks for all this information: does any one who has renamed Production and live VM ( win2k8R2) on esxi5.1.Please post step by steps. Thanks to all of you.
Raj says
I have to perform this change in next Tuesday, does any one who has renamed Production and live VM ( win2k8R2) on esxi5.1.Please post it ( send it [email protected] )
Jatin says
Is there a way to remove a key? while entering the key “provisioning.relocate.enableRename”, I had typo and mispressed enter twice, which let to adding the key. now there is a key that has no value assigned to it, but exists with other key, in the name “config.provisioning”.
How lame, they should have even have one more tab to remove key!!!