Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Renaming virtual machine files using SvMotion back in 5.0 U2

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I have been pushing for this heavily internally together with Frank Denneman and it pleases me to say that it is finally back… You can rename your virtual machine files again using Storage vMotion as of 5.0 u2.

vSphere 5 Storage vMotion is unable to rename virtual machine files on completing migration
In vCenter Server , when you rename a virtual machine in the vSphere Client, the vmdk disks are not renamed following a successful Storage vMotion task. When you perform a Storage vMotion of the virtual machine to have its folder and associated files renamed to match the new name. The virtual machine folder name changes, but the virtual machine file names do not change.

This issue is resolved in this release

src: https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsp_vc50_u2_rel_notes.html#resolvedissues

Those who want to know what else is fixed, you can find the full release notes here of both ESXi 5.0 U2 and vCenter 5.0 U2:

** do note that this fix is not part of 5.1 yet **

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Comments

  1. Unfortunate that this is resolved in 5.0u2 but not 5.1. Definitely a long time coming. If only they could prevent users from renaming VMs via the inventory pane! Or invoke a rename of the folders/files when the users initiate a rename via the inventory pane, it would eliminate the need for this altogether!

  3. Wow! This is great, and removes a concern about identity and governance in an environment.

  5. Just curious, did you test this feature? I had updated my VC and hosts to 50U2 and tried this. Only the folder got renamed, not the contents.

    • I wonder if it is not supposed to work. I found a post on the VMware forums of info I shared with someone asking about this issue. According to the KB, the files aren’t intended to get renamed due to Storage DRS compatibility:

      KB 1029513

      Note: Storage/Cold Storage vMotion or using the console renames only the folder names and not the files in ESXi 5.0. This behavior was changed to support Storage DRS on ESXi 5.0. For more information, see vSphere 5 Storage vMotion does not rename virtual machine files on completing migration (2008877).

      • I opened case with VMware and the release notes will be updated. The advanced feature need to be added and enabled, If you want this feature to work; not out of the box.