VMware vRealize Automation - 7.4 User’s Manual

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Custom Properties Reference

12 April 2018 vRealize Automation 7.4

Custom Properties Reference

You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware website at:

https://docs.vmware.com/

If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to

docfeedback@vmware.com

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3401 Hillview Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94304 www.vmware.com

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Custom Properties Reference 5

Custom Properties and the Property Dictionary 6

Using Custom Properties 6

Creating and Adding Custom Properties and Property Groups 7

Using Properties in Machine Provisioning 7

Understanding Custom Properties Precedence 8

Custom Properties Grouped by Function 11

Custom Properties for Deployments 12

Custom Properties for Naming and Analyzing Deployments 14

Custom Properties for OpenStack Endpoints 15

Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints 15

Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints 19

Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints 21

Custom Properties for Basic Workflow Blueprints 24

Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints 25

Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints 27

Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints 28

Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Blueprints 32

Custom Properties for Networking and Security 35

Custom Properties and Property Groups for Containers 45

Custom Properties for PXE Provisioning 46

Custom Properties for OVF Import 49

Custom Properties for vRealize Automation Guest Agent 49

Custom Properties for BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager Integration 52

Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration 54

Custom Properties Grouped by Name 57

Custom Properties Underscore (_) 57

Custom Properties A 58

Custom Properties B 60

Custom Properties C 61

Custom Properties E 63

Custom Properties H 65

Custom Properties I 65

Custom Properties L 67

Custom Properties M 67

Custom Properties N 68

Custom Properties O 70

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Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties P 71

Custom Properties R 72

Custom Properties S 72

Custom Properties V 77

Custom Properties X 99

Using the Property Dictionary 99

Using Property Definitions 99

Using Property Groups 120

Defining Component Profile Settings 122

Configure Component Profile Image Settings for Catalog Deployments 123

Configure Component Profile Size Settings for Catalog Deployments 124

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Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties Reference provides information about the custom properties, and their use, that are

available when you use vRealize Automation.

This documentation is intended to be used with the vRealize Automation product documentation available

from the vRealize Automation Documentation page at https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vcac-

pubs.html.

Intended Audience

This information is intended for IaaS administrators, fabric administrators, and business group managers

of vRealize Automation. This content is written for experienced Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with virtualization technology and the basic concepts described in Foundations and Concepts.

VMware Technical Publications Glossary

VMware Technical Publications provides a glossary of terms that might be unfamiliar to you. For

definitions of terms as they are used in VMware technical documentation, go to

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.

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Custom Properties and the

Property Dictionary 1

You can use supplied vRealize Automation custom properties to control various aspects of machine

provisioning. You can also use the property dictionary to create new property definitions and property

groups that are tailored to your specific needs.

You can use properties to add values or override existing or default values for configuring network,

platform, and guest agent settings and many other deployment-related parameters.

This chapter includes the following topics:

Using Custom Properties

Custom Properties Grouped by Function

Custom Properties Grouped by Name

Using the Property Dictionary

Defining Component Profile Settings

Using Custom Properties

You can use vRealize Automation custom properties to add values or override existing or default values

for configuring settings for network, platform, guest agent, and many other deployment parameters.

Some properties are determined by standard settings that you must specify for all machines. For

example, memory and disk size values are required for all blueprints. You can specify additional

properties individually or in property groups in blueprints and in reservations. When you add a property to

a blueprint or a property group, you can mark it as a required property. When a property is specified as

required, the user must provide a value for that property when they request a machine, such as in the

following examples.

Require information about multiple disks sharing the machine’s allocated storage.

Require information about users or groups to be added to a local group on the machine.

Require the host name of the machine.

The Windows guest agent records property values on the provisioned machine in the %SystemDrive

%\VRMGuestAgent\site\workitem.xml file.

The Linux guest agent records property values on the provisioned machine in

the /usr/share/gugent/site/workitem.xml file.

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Custom Properties Reference

Creating and Adding Custom Properties and Property Groups

You can use custom properties to control machine provisioning. You can add supplied custom properties

and also create and add your own properties and property groups.

You can add properties and property groups to overall blueprints, components in a blueprint, reservations

and other vRealize Automation items, including some endpoint types. You can also create new custom

properties and property groups.

You can add properties and property groups when you create a blueprint, or later when the blueprint is in

the draft or published state. Alternatively you can add custom properties and property groups to individual

components in the blueprint.

Blueprint-level custom properties take precedence over custom properties that are configured at the

component level. For information about custom property precedence, see Understanding Custom

Properties Precedence.

You can edit blueprint-level properties by using the blueprint properties page.

A custom property can optionally require that the user specify a property value when they create a

machine request.

Custom property names and values are typically case-sensitive. For example, a custom property

expressed as hostname and another custom property expressed as HOSTNAME are considered

different custom properties.

Custom property names cannot contain spaces. When creating and using custom properties, do not

include a space in the property name.

Some custom property names are reserved and cannot be used as names when you create new

custom properties. For example the property name Encrypted and encrypted is reserved.

For more information about creating new custom properties and property groups, see Using the Property

Dictionary.

Using Properties in Machine Provisioning

Custom properties are vRealize Automation-supplied properties. You can also define your own properties.

Properties are name-value pairs used to specify attributes of a machine or to override default

specifications.

You can use custom properties to control different provisioning methods, types of machines, and machine

options as in the following examples:

Specify a particular type of guest OS.

Enable WIM-based provisioning, in which a Windows Imaging File Format (WIM) image of a

reference machine is used to provision new machines.

Customize the behavior of Remote Desktop Protocol when connecting to a machine.

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Custom Properties Reference

Customize a virtual machine’s system specifications, such as adding multiple disk drives.

Customize the guest OS for a machine, for instance, by including specified users in selected local

groups.

Specify network and security settings.

Add additional control options such as drop-down menus to make input and selection options

available to the consumer at request time.

When you add a property to a blueprint, reservation, or other form you can specify if the property is to be

encrypted and also if the user must be prompted to specify a value when provisioning. These options

cannot be overridden when provisioning.

For an example of how to additional control options to dynamically set a custom property based on a

consumer's selection from a list of predefined options, see the Adding a Network Selection Drop-Down in

vRA 7 blog post.

A property specified in a blueprint overrides the same property specified in a property group. This enables

a blueprint to use most of the properties in a property group while differing from the property group in

some limited way. For example, a blueprint that incorporates a standard developer workstation property

group might override the US English settings in the group with UK English settings.

You can apply properties in reservations and business groups to many machines. Their use is typically

limited to purposes related to their sources, such as resource management. Specifying the characteristics

of the machine to be provisioned is generally done by adding properties to blueprints and property

groups.

Understanding Custom Properties Precedence

Properly authorized users can specify custom properties for blueprints, endpoints, business groups, and

reservations. When the same property exists in more than one source, vRealize Automation follows a

specific order of precedence when applying properties to the machine.

You can add custom properties that apply to provisioned machines to the following elements:

A reservation, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned from that reservation.

A business group, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned by business group

members.

A blueprint, to apply the custom properties to all machines provisioned from the blueprint.

Property groups, which can be included in a blueprint, to apply all the custom properties in the group

to all machines provisioned from the blueprint.

A blueprint can contain one or more property groups.

A machine request to apply the custom properties to the machine being provisioned.

An approval policy, if advanced approval support is enabled, to require approvers to provide values

for the machine being approved.

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Custom Properties Reference

The following list shows the order of precedence for custom properties. Property value specified in a

source that appears later in the list override values for the same property specified in sources that appear

earlier in the list.

Note If a conflict exists between a vRealize Automation-supplied custom property name and a user-

defined property name, the vRealize Automation-supplied custom property name takes precedence.

1 Property group

2 Blueprint

3 Business group

4 Compute resource

5 Reservations

6 Endpoint

7 Runtime

Property group, blueprint, and business group custom properties are assigned at request time, while

other compute resource, reservation, and endpoint properties are assigned during provisioning.

This order is further clarified as follows:

1 Custom properties and groups at the overall blueprint level

2 Custom properties and groups at the component level

3 Custom properties for the business group

4 Custom properties for the compute resource

5 Custom properties for the reservation

6 Custom properties for the endpoint

7 Custom properties at the nested blueprint request level

8 Custom properties at the component request level

In most situations, a runtime property takes precedence over other properties. A runtime property meets

the following conditions:

The property option to prompt the user is selected, which specifies that the user must supply a value

for the property when they request machine provisioning.

A business group manager is requesting machine provisioning and the property appears in the

custom properties list on the machine request confirmation page.

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Custom Properties Reference

There are exceptions to the precedence rules. For example, you add the

VMware.VirtualCenter.Folder custom property to a business group, provide a property value, and do

not select the option to show the property in the request. You add the same custom property to a blueprint

and specify that the property be shown in the request. When your designated users request provisioning

from the catalog, the property does not appear in the catalog request form because the property applies

to reservation information that is only available after provisioning begins, and not when you request

provisioning.

Custom Property Types

You can use vRealize Automation external and updated property types for cloned machines. You cannot

use Internal and read-only property types for cloned machines.

The following vRealize Automation custom property types are available.

Internal

The specified value is maintained in the database only. For example, the email address of the

manager who approved a machine request is recorded in the VirtualMachine.Admin.Approver

property but the property has no effect on the machine.

Read-only

The specified value is implemented on the machine and cannot be changed. For example,

VirtualMachine.Admin.UUID specifies the UUID of the machine, which cannot be changed.

External

A machine’s external properties are determined when the virtualization platform creates the machine

or during the WinPE phase of the build process. To set these properties, their values must be

provided to the proxy agent, which passes them on to the virtualization platform, or to the guest

agent , which implements them in the WinPE phase.

The specified value is implemented on the machine but is never updated. For example, if the property

VirtualMachine.Admin.AddOwnerToAdmins is set to true, the owner of the machine is added to its

local administrators group. If the owner is later removed from this group, the property is not updated

to false.

Updated

The specified value is implemented on the machine and is updated through data collection. For

example, if the compute resource of a machine is changed, a proxy agent updates the value of the

machine’s VirtualMachine.Admin.Hostname property.

Internal and read-only property types set attributes that the template determines.

You can use the vRealize Automation machine menu to change all reserved custom properties except the

read-only properties VirtualMachine.Admin.AgentID, VirtualMachine.Admin.UUID, and

VirtualMachine.Admin.Name.

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Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties Grouped by Function

You can use custom properties to provide additional vRealize Automation controls.

Custom properties have been grouped here by function. To explore custom properties grouped by name,

see Custom Properties Grouped by Name.

Custom Properties for Deployments

vRealize Automation provides several custom properties that are applicable to most deployments.

Custom Properties for Naming and Analyzing Deployments

If provisioning fails, vRealize Automation rolls back all resources included in the catalog item. For

deployments that contain multiple components, you can use a custom property to override that

default and receive information to debug the failure. These properties are best used when applied to

the overall blueprint.

Custom Properties for OpenStack Endpoints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties you might want to use when you configure your

OpenStack endpoints in vRealize Automation.

Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

clone blueprints.

Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

linked clone blueprints.

Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

FlexClone blueprints.

Custom Properties for Basic Workflow Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

basic workflow blueprints.

Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

Linux Kickstart blueprints.

Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

SCCM blueprints.

Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that provide additional controls for WIM blueprints.

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Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Blueprints

You can add certain custom properties to a vCloud Air or vCloud Director machine component

definition in a blueprint.

Custom Properties for Networking and Security

The vRealize Automation custom properties for networking specify configuration for a specific

network device on a machine.

Custom Properties and Property Groups for Containers

You can add predefined property groups to a containers component in a vRealize Automation

blueprint. When machines are provisioned by using a blueprint that contain these properties, the

provisioned machine is registered as a Docker Container host machine.

Custom Properties for PXE Provisioning

PXE is the only provisioning method supported for Cisco UCS Manager. You can use the network

bootstrap program with vRealize Automation custom properties to initiate WIM, SCCM, or Linux

Kickstart provisioning. You can also use custom properties to call your own PowerShell scripts. Linux

Kickstart provisioning does not require custom properties.

Custom Properties for OVF Import

When you import an OVF to a blueprint, you can import and configure several settings as custom

properties.

Custom Properties for vRealize Automation Guest Agent

If you have installed the vRealize Automation guest agent in your templates for cloning or in your

WinPE, you can use custom properties to run custom scripts within the guest operating system of a

provisioned machine after the machine is fully deployed.

Custom Properties for BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager Integration

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager integration.

Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

HP Server Automation integration. Some custom properties are required for HP Server Automation

integration. Other custom properties are optional.

Custom Properties for Deployments

vRealize Automation provides several custom properties that are applicable to most deployments.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑1. Custom Properties for Blueprints and Deployments

Custom Property Description

_debug_deployment

Except for scale operations which allow partially successful

deployments, the default behavior is to destroy the entire

deployment if any of the individual resources fail to provision.

You can override the default behavior by setting the

_debug_deployment custom property value to true. If

provisioning fails, the debugging custom property stops the

resources from being rolled back so you can identify which of

the components failed to provision successfully.

A failed catalog item is inaccessible because it is immediately

rolled back on failure. But when _debug_deployment is set to

true, vRealize Automation treats the otherwise failed deployment

as partially successful, which enables its accessibility. This

behavior matches how failures are treated in scale operations.

If a virtual machine deployment fails, the deployment process

does not have awareness of the machine being provisioned. If it

is not provisioned, then there is nothing for the

_debug_deployment preserve from being rolled back.

To apply the custom property to a blueprint, add

_debug_deployment to the Blueprint Properties page using

the Properties tab when you create or edit a blueprint. The

_debug_deployment property is consumed at the software

provisioning level, not the guest agent or machine provisioning

level.

You can also configure vRealize Automation to not delete virtual

machines after deployment failure by using settings in the

VRMAgent.exe.config file.

_deploymentName

_number_of_instances

When added to a blueprint, this property allows you to specify a

custom name for the deployment by setting the value of

_deploymentName to your custom string. If more than one

instance of this deployment is provisioned in a single request,

your custom name becomes a prefix. If you want users to

specify their own deployment names, set this custom property to

allow override. The following two caveats are required for usage:

You must add this property at the blueprint level, not at the

component level. For example, when creating or editing a

blueprint, click the Properties tab and then select Custom

Properties > New to add the _deploymentName property to

the blueprint. Do not add the property to a machine or other

component in the blueprint.

You must add this property as a separate property and not

as a member of a property group.

When added to a blueprint, this property allows you to specify

the number of instances of the deployment that a user can

provision in a single request.

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Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties for Naming and Analyzing Deployments

If provisioning fails, vRealize Automation rolls back all resources included in the catalog item. For

deployments that contain multiple components, you can use a custom property to override that default

and receive information to debug the failure. These properties are best used when applied to the overall

blueprint.

Table 1‑2. Custom Properties for Analyzing Deployments

Custom Property Description

_debug_deployment

Except for scale operations which allow partially successful

deployments, the default behavior is to destroy the entire

deployment if any of the individual resources fail to provision.

You can override the default behavior by setting the

_debug_deployment custom property value to true. If

provisioning fails, the debugging custom property stops the

resources from being rolled back so you can identify which of

the components failed to provision successfully.

A failed catalog item is inaccessible because it is immediately

rolled back on failure. But when _debug_deployment is set to

true, vRealize Automation treats the otherwise failed deployment

as partially successful, which enables its accessibility. This

behavior matches how failures are treated in scale operations.

If a virtual machine deployment fails, the deployment process

does not have awareness of the machine being provisioned. If it

is not provisioned, then there is nothing for the

_debug_deployment preserve from being rolled back.

To apply the custom property to a blueprint, add

_debug_deployment to the Blueprint Properties page using

the Properties tab when you create or edit a blueprint. The

_debug_deployment property is consumed at the software

provisioning level, not the guest agent or machine provisioning

level.

You can also configure vRealize Automation to not delete virtual

machines after deployment failure by using settings in the

VRMAgent.exe.config file.

_deploymentName

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When added to a blueprint, this property allows you to specify a

custom name for the deployment by setting the value of

_deploymentName to your custom string. If more than one

instance of this deployment is provisioned in a single request,

your custom name becomes a prefix. If you want users to

specify their own deployment names, set this custom property to

allow override. The following two caveats are required for usage:

You must add this property at the blueprint level, not at the

component level. For example, when creating or editing a

blueprint, click the Properties tab and then select Custom

Properties > New to add the _deploymentName property to

the blueprint. Do not add the property to a machine or other

component in the blueprint.

You must add this property as a separate property and not

as a member of a property group.

Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties for OpenStack Endpoints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties you might want to use when you configure your

OpenStack endpoints in vRealize Automation.

Table 1‑3. Custom Properties for Openstack Endpoints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.ConnectAddress.Regex

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AdditionAddressM Defines additional M IP address allocated for an OpenStack

VMware.Endpoint.Openstack.IdentityProvider.Domain.N

ame

Used by a vRealize Automation administrator to define a regular

expression to match an IP address for terminal connections,

such as an RDP connection. If matched, the IP address is saved

under the VirtualMachine.Admin.ConnectAddress custom

property. Otherwise, the first available IP address is designated.

For example, setting the property value to 10.10.0. allows

selection of an IP address from a 10.10.0.* subnet that is

assigned to the virtual machine. If the subnet has not been

assigned, the property is ignored.

This property is available for use with OpenStack.

instance for network N, excluding the IP address set specified by the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Address. property. More

addresses are displayed on the Network tab in the Additional

Addresses column.

This property is used by OpenStack machine state data

collection. While this property is only data-collected by the

OpenStack endpoint, it is not specific to OpenStack and can be

used for lifecycle extensibility by other endpoint types.

This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-

demand routed networks.

Allows vRealize Automation to support required Keystone V3

domain-name authentication. If Keystone V3 is in effect, you can

use the property to designate a specific domain for the

OpenStack endpoint to authenticate with a Keystone V3

OpenStack identity provider.

For new endpoints, add the custom property to designate a

specific domain.

For upgraded or migrated endpoints, add the custom

property only if data collection fails after upgrade or

migration.

VMware.Endpoint.Openstack.IdentityProvider.Version

Specifies the version of OpenStack identity provider (Keystone)

to use when authenticating an OpenStack endpoint. Configure a

value of 3 to authenticate with Keystone V3 OpenStack identity

provider. If you use any other value, or do not use this custom

property, authentication defaults to Keystone V2.

Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for clone

blueprints.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑4. Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicy

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName

Specifies the storage reservation policy to use to find storage for disk N. Also assigns the named storage reservation policy to a volume. To use this property, substitute the volume number for N

in the property name and specify a storage reservation policy

name as the value. This property is equivalent to the storage

reservation policy name specified on the blueprint. Disk

numbering must be sequential. This property is valid for all

Virtual and vCloud reservations. This property is not valid for

Physical, Amazon, or OpenStack reservations.

Specifies the name of a network profile from which to assign a static IP address to network device N or from which to obtain the

range of static IP addresses that can be assigned to network device N of a cloned machine, where N=0 for the first device, 1

for the second, and so on.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName to select

any network from the reservation regardless of whether it

has a corresponding network profile.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName to

only select networks that have a corresponding network

profile with the same name.

The network profile that the property points to is used to allocate

an IP address. However, the provisioned machine is attached to

any network that is selected in the reservation using a round-

robin fashion model.

Changing this property value after the network is assigned has

no effect on the expected IP address values for the designated

machines.

With WIM-based provisioning for virtual machines, you can use

this property to specify a network profile and network interface or

you can use the Network section of the Virtual Reservation

page. You can also assign the network interface to a virtual

network using the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom

property.

The following attributes of the network profile are available to

enable static IP assignment in a cloning blueprint:

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑4. Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

Linux.ExternalScript.Name

Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType

Linux.ExternalScript.Server

Linux.ExternalScript.Path

Specifies the name of an optional customization script, for

example config.sh, that the Linux guest agent runs after the

operating system is installed. This property is available for Linux

machines cloned from templates on which the Linux agent is

installed.

If you specify an external script, you must also define its location

by using the Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType and

Linux.ExternalScript.Path properties.

Specifies the location type of the customization script named in

the Linux.ExternalScript.Name property. This can be either

local or nfs.

You must also specify the script location using the

Linux.ExternalScript.Path property. If the location type is

nfs, also use the Linux.ExternalScript.Server property.

Specifies the name of the NFS server, for example lab-

ad.lab.local, on which the Linux external customization script

named in Linux.ExternalScript.Name is located.

Specifies the local path to the Linux customization script or the

export path to the Linux customization on the NFS server. The

value must begin with a forward slash and not include the file

name, for example /scripts/linux/config.sh.

If your administrators installed the guest agent to run scripts that accept custom properties and customize

provisioned machines, you can use custom properties to further customize cloned machines that use the

guest agent.

Table 1‑5. Custom Properties for Customizing Cloned Machines with a Guest Agent

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.AllowLogin

VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Active

Set to True (default) to add the machine owner to the local

remote desktop users group, as specified by the

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner property.

If the guest agent is installed as a service on a template for

cloning, set to True on the machine blueprint to enable the guest

agent service on machines cloned from that template. When the

machine is started, the guest agent service is started. Set to

False to disable the guest agent. If set to False, the enhanced

clone workfow will not use the guest agent for guest operating

system tasks, reducing its functionality to

VMwareCloneWorkflow. If not specified or set to anything other

than False, the enhanced clone workflow sends work items to

the guest agent.

Set to True (default) to specify that the machine's disk N is active. Set to False to specify that the machine's disk N is not

active.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑5. Custom Properties for Customizing Cloned Machines with a Guest Agent (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Label

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Letter

VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay

VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.Name

Specifies the label for a machine’s disk N. The disk label

maximum is 32 characters. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used with a guest agent, specifies the label of a machine's disk N inside the guest operating system.

Specifies the drive letter or mount point of a machine’s disk N.

The default is C. For example, to specify the letter D for Disk 1,

define the custom property as VirtualMachine.Disk1.Letter

and enter the value D. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used in conjunction with a guest agent, this value

specifies the drive letter or mount point under which an additional disk N is mounted by the guest agent in the guest

operating system.

Specifies the time to wait after customization is complete and

before starting the guest operating system customization. The

value must be in HH:MM:SS format. If the value is not set, the

default value is one minute (00:01:00). If you choose not to

include this custom property, provisioning can fail if the virtual

machine reboots before guest agent work items are completed,

causing provisioning to fail.

Set to True to prevent the provisioning workflow from sending

work items to the guest agent until all customizations are

complete.

Specifies the descriptive name of a software application N or

script to install or run during provisioning. This is an optional and

information-only property. It serves no real function for the

enhanced clone workflow or the guest agent but it is useful for a

custom software selection in a user interface or for software use

reporting.

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOName

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOLocation

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Specifies the full path to an application's install script. The path

must be a valid absolute path as seen by the guest operating

system and must include the name of the script filename.

You can pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {CustomPropertyName} in the path string. For

example, if you have a custom property named ActivationKey

whose value is 1234, the script path is D:\InstallApp.bat –

key {ActivationKey}. The guest agent runs the command

D:\InstallApp.bat –key 1234. Your script file can then be

programmed to accept and use this value.

Specifies the path and filename of the ISO file relative to the

datastore root. The format

is /folder_name/subfolder_name/file_name.iso. If a value

is not specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Specifies the storage path that contains the ISO image file to be

used by the application or script. Format the path as it appears

on the host reservation, for example netapp-1:it_nfs_1. If a

value is not specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for linked

clone blueprints.

Certain vRealize Automation custom properties are required to use with linked clone blueprints.

Table 1‑6. Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Storage

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicy

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Label

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Letter

Specifies the datastore on which to place the machine disk N,

for example DATASTORE01. This property is also used to add a single datastore to a linked clone blueprint. N is the index

(starting at 0) of the volume to assign. Enter the name of the

datastore to assign to the volume. This is the datastore name as

it appears in the Storage Path on the Edit Compute Resource

page. Disk numbering must be sequential.

Specifies the storage reservation policy to use to find storage for disk N. Also assigns the named storage reservation policy to a volume. To use this property, substitute the volume number for N

in the property name and specify a storage reservation policy

name as the value. This property is equivalent to the storage

reservation policy name specified on the blueprint. Disk

numbering must be sequential. This property is valid for all

Virtual and vCloud reservations. This property is not valid for

Physical, Amazon, or OpenStack reservations.

Specifies the label for a machine’s disk N. The disk label

maximum is 32 characters. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used with a guest agent, specifies the label of a machine's disk N inside the guest operating system.

Specifies the drive letter or mount point of a machine’s disk N.

The default is C. For example, to specify the letter D for Disk 1,

define the custom property as VirtualMachine.Disk1.Letter

and enter the value D. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used in conjunction with a guest agent, this value

specifies the drive letter or mount point under which an additional disk N is mounted by the guest agent in the guest

operating system.

MaximumProvisionedMachines

Linux.ExternalScript.Name

VMware, Inc. 19

Specifies the maximum number of linked clones for one machine

snapshot. The default is unlimited.

Specifies the name of an optional customization script, for

example config.sh, that the Linux guest agent runs after the

operating system is installed. This property is available for Linux

machines cloned from templates on which the Linux agent is

installed.

If you specify an external script, you must also define its location

by using the Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType and

Linux.ExternalScript.Path properties.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑6. Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType

Linux.ExternalScript.Server

Linux.ExternalScript.Path

Specifies the location type of the customization script named in

the Linux.ExternalScript.Name property. This can be either

local or nfs.

You must also specify the script location using the

Linux.ExternalScript.Path property. If the location type is

nfs, also use the Linux.ExternalScript.Server property.

Specifies the name of the NFS server, for example lab-

ad.lab.local, on which the Linux external customization script

named in Linux.ExternalScript.Name is located.

Specifies the local path to the Linux customization script or the

export path to the Linux customization on the NFS server. The

value must begin with a forward slash and not include the file

name, for example /scripts/linux/config.sh.

If you installed the guest agent to customize cloned machines, you use some custom properties more

often than others.

Table 1‑7. Custom Properties for Customizing Cloned Machines with a Guest Agent

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent

If the guest agent is installed as a service on a template for

cloning, set to True on the machine blueprint to enable the guest

agent service on machines cloned from that template. When the

machine is started, the guest agent service is started. Set to

False to disable the guest agent. If set to False, the enhanced

clone workfow will not use the guest agent for guest operating

system tasks, reducing its functionality to

VMwareCloneWorkflow. If not specified or set to anything other

than False, the enhanced clone workflow sends work items to

the guest agent.

VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay

VMware, Inc. 20

Specifies the time to wait after customization is complete and

before starting the guest operating system customization. The

value must be in HH:MM:SS format. If the value is not set, the

default value is one minute (00:01:00). If you choose not to

include this custom property, provisioning can fail if the virtual

machine reboots before guest agent work items are completed,

causing provisioning to fail.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑7. Custom Properties for Customizing Cloned Machines with a Guest Agent (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath

Set to True to prevent the provisioning workflow from sending

work items to the guest agent until all customizations are

complete.

Specifies the full path to an application's install script. The path

must be a valid absolute path as seen by the guest operating

system and must include the name of the script filename.

You can pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {CustomPropertyName} in the path string. For

example, if you have a custom property named ActivationKey

whose value is 1234, the script path is D:\InstallApp.bat –

key {ActivationKey}. The guest agent runs the command

D:\InstallApp.bat –key 1234. Your script file can then be

programmed to accept and use this value.

Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for

FlexClone blueprints.

VMware, Inc. 21

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑8. Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName

Specifies the name of a network profile from which to assign a static IP address to network device N or from which to obtain the

range of static IP addresses that can be assigned to network device N of a cloned machine, where N=0 for the first device, 1

for the second, and so on.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName to select

any network from the reservation regardless of whether it

has a corresponding network profile.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName to

only select networks that have a corresponding network

profile with the same name.

The network profile that the property points to is used to allocate

an IP address. However, the provisioned machine is attached to

any network that is selected in the reservation using a round-

robin fashion model.

Changing this property value after the network is assigned has

no effect on the expected IP address values for the designated

machines.

With WIM-based provisioning for virtual machines, you can use

this property to specify a network profile and network interface or

you can use the Network section of the Virtual Reservation

page. You can also assign the network interface to a virtual

network using the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom

property.

The following attributes of the network profile are available to

enable static IP assignment in a cloning blueprint:

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation.

Linux.ExternalScript.Name

Specifies the name of an optional customization script, for

example config.sh, that the Linux guest agent runs after the

operating system is installed. This property is available for Linux

machines cloned from templates on which the Linux agent is

installed.

If you specify an external script, you must also define its location

by using the Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType and

Linux.ExternalScript.Path properties.

VMware, Inc. 22

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑8. Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType

Linux.ExternalScript.Server

Linux.ExternalScript.Path

Specifies the location type of the customization script named in

the Linux.ExternalScript.Name property. This can be either

local or nfs.

You must also specify the script location using the

Linux.ExternalScript.Path property. If the location type is

nfs, also use the Linux.ExternalScript.Server property.

Specifies the name of the NFS server, for example lab-

ad.lab.local, on which the Linux external customization script

named in Linux.ExternalScript.Name is located.

Specifies the local path to the Linux customization script or the

export path to the Linux customization on the NFS server. The

value must begin with a forward slash and not include the file

name, for example /scripts/linux/config.sh.

If you installed the guest agent to customize cloned machines, the Custom Properties for Customizing

FlexClone Machines with a Guest Agent table describes the most commonly used custom properties for

your situation.

Table 1‑9. Custom Properties for Customizing FlexClone Machines with a Guest Agent

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent

If the guest agent is installed as a service on a template for

cloning, set to True on the machine blueprint to enable the guest

agent service on machines cloned from that template. When the

machine is started, the guest agent service is started. Set to

False to disable the guest agent. If set to False, the enhanced

clone workfow will not use the guest agent for guest operating

system tasks, reducing its functionality to

VMwareCloneWorkflow. If not specified or set to anything other

than False, the enhanced clone workflow sends work items to

the guest agent.

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Label

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Letter

VMware, Inc. 23

Specifies the label for a machine’s disk N. The disk label

maximum is 32 characters. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used with a guest agent, specifies the label of a machine's disk N inside the guest operating system.

Specifies the drive letter or mount point of a machine’s disk N.

The default is C. For example, to specify the letter D for Disk 1,

define the custom property as VirtualMachine.Disk1.Letter

and enter the value D. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used in conjunction with a guest agent, this value

specifies the drive letter or mount point under which an additional disk N is mounted by the guest agent in the guest

operating system.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑9. Custom Properties for Customizing FlexClone Machines with a Guest Agent (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay

VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath

Specifies the time to wait after customization is complete and

before starting the guest operating system customization. The

value must be in HH:MM:SS format. If the value is not set, the

default value is one minute (00:01:00). If you choose not to

include this custom property, provisioning can fail if the virtual

machine reboots before guest agent work items are completed,

causing provisioning to fail.

Set to True to prevent the provisioning workflow from sending

work items to the guest agent until all customizations are

complete.

Specifies the full path to an application's install script. The path

must be a valid absolute path as seen by the guest operating

system and must include the name of the script filename.

You can pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {CustomPropertyName} in the path string. For

example, if you have a custom property named ActivationKey

whose value is 1234, the script path is D:\InstallApp.bat –

key {ActivationKey}. The guest agent runs the command

D:\InstallApp.bat –key 1234. Your script file can then be

programmed to accept and use this value.

Custom Properties for Basic Workﬂow Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for basic

workflow blueprints.

Table 1‑10. Custom Properties for Basic Workﬂow Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.CDROM.Attach

VirtualMachine.Admin.ThinProvision

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicy

Set to False to provision the machine without a CD-ROM device.

The default is True.

Determines whether thin provisioning is used on ESX compute

resources. Disk provisioning is abstracted from the underlying

storage. Set to True to use thin provisioning. Set to False to use

standard provisioning. This property is for virtual provisioning.

Specifies the storage reservation policy to use to find storage for disk N. Also assigns the named storage reservation policy to a volume. To use this property, substitute the volume number for N

in the property name and specify a storage reservation policy

name as the value. This property is equivalent to the storage

reservation policy name specified on the blueprint. Disk

numbering must be sequential. This property is valid for all

Virtual and vCloud reservations. This property is not valid for

Physical, Amazon, or OpenStack reservations.

VMware, Inc. 24

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑10. Custom Properties for Basic Workﬂow Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Storage.AllocationType

VirtualMachine.Storage.Name

VirtualMachine.Storage.ReserveMemory

Stores collected groups to a single datastore. A distributed

environment stores disks round-robin style. Specify one of the

following values:

Collected

Keep all disks together.

Distributed

Allow disks to be placed on any datastore or datastore

cluster that is available in the reservation.

For an example of how to use the

VirtualMachine.Storage.AllocationType property to

create datastore clusters, see the Keeping Multiple Disks

Together blog post.

Identifies the storage path on which the machine resides. The

default is the value specified in the reservation that was used to

provision the machine.

Set to True to manage vSwap storage allocation to ensure

availability and set allocation in the reservation. vSwap

allocation is considered when you create or reconfigure a virtual

machine. vSwap allocation checking is only available for

vSphere endpoints.

Note If you do not specify the

VirtualMachine.Storage.ReserveMemory custom property

when you create or provision the machine from

vRealize Automation, swap space availability is not ensured. If

you add the property for an already provisioned machine, and

the allocated reservation is full, the storage allocated in the

reservation might exceed the actual allocated storage.

VMware.Hardware.Version

Specifies the VM hardware version to be used for vSphere

settings. Supported values are currently vmx-04, vmx-07,

vmx-08, vmx-09 and vmx-10. This property is applicable for VM

Create and VM Update workflows and is available only for basic

workflow blueprints.

Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for Linux

Kickstart blueprints.

Certain vRealize Automation custom properties are required to use with Linux Kickstart blueprints.

VMware, Inc. 25

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑11. Required Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

Image.ISO.Location

Image.ISO.Name

Specifies the vCenter Server guest operating system version

(VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier) with which

vCenter Server creates the machine. This operating system

version must match the operating system version to be installed

on the provisioned machine. Administrators can create property

groups using one of several property sets, for example,

VMware[OS_Version]Properties, that are predefined to

include the correct VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

values. This property is for virtual provisioning.

For related information, see the enumeration type

VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier in vSphere API/SDK

Documentation. For a list of currently accepted values, see the

vCenter Server documentation.

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the location

of the ISO image from which to boot, for example http://192.168.2.100/site2/winpe.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the name

of the ISO image from which to boot, for

example /ISO/Microsoft/WinPE.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Image.ISO.UserName

Image.ISO.Password

Optional custom properties are available.

Specifies the user name to access the CIFS share in the format username@domain. For Dell iDRAC integrations where the

image is located on a CIFS share that requires authentication to

access.

Specifies the password associated with the

Image.ISO.UserName property. For Dell iDRAC integrations

where the image is located on a CIFS share that requires

authentication to access.

VMware, Inc. 26

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑12. Optional Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.ThinProvision

Machine.SSH

Determines whether thin provisioning is used on ESX compute

resources. Disk provisioning is abstracted from the underlying

storage. Set to True to use thin provisioning. Set to False to use

standard provisioning. This property is for virtual provisioning.

Set to True to enable the Connect Using SSH option on the

vRealize Automation Items page for Linux machines provisioned

from this blueprint. If set to True and the Connect using RDP or

SSH machine operation is enabled in the blueprint, all Linux

machines that are provisioned from the blueprint display the

Connect Using SSH option to entitled users.

The Connect Using SSH option requires that your browser has

a plug-in that supports SSH, for example the FireSSH SSH

terminal client for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. When the

plug-in is present, selecting Connect Using SSH displays an

SSH console and prompts for your administrator credentials.

Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for SCCM

blueprints.

Certain custom properties are required to use with SCCM blueprints.

Table 1‑13. Required Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints

Custom Property Description

Image.ISO.Location

Image.ISO.Name

Image.ISO.UserName

Image.ISO.Password

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the location

of the ISO image from which to boot, for example http://192.168.2.100/site2/winpe.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the name

of the ISO image from which to boot, for

example /ISO/Microsoft/WinPE.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Specifies the user name to access the CIFS share in the format username@domain. For Dell iDRAC integrations where the

image is located on a CIFS share that requires authentication to

access.

Specifies the password associated with the

Image.ISO.UserName property. For Dell iDRAC integrations

where the image is located on a CIFS share that requires

authentication to access.

VMware, Inc. 27

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑13. Required Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

SCCM.Collection.Name

SCCM.Server.Name

SCCM.Server.SiteCode

SCCM.Server.UserName

SCCM.Server.Password

Specifies the name of the SCCM collection that contains the

operating system deployment task sequence.

Specifies the fully qualified domain name of the SCCM server on

which the collection resides, for example lab-sccm.lab.local.

Specifies the site code of the SCCM server.

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to the

SCCM server.

Specifies the password associated with the

SCCM.Server.UserName property.

Certain custom properties are used most often with SCCM blueprints.

Table 1‑14. Common Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints

Custom Property Description

SCCM.CustomVariable.Name Specifies the value of a custom variable, where Name is the

name of any custom variable to be made available to the SCCM

task sequence after the provisioned machine is registered with

the SCCM collection. The value is determined by your choice of

custom variable. If your integration requires it, you can use

SCCM.RemoveCustomVariablePrefix to remove the

SCCM.CustomVariable. prefix from your custom variable.

SCCM.RemoveCustomVariablePrefix

Set to true to remove the prefix SCCM.CustomVariable. from

SCCM custom variables you created by using the custom property SCCM.CustomVariable.Name.

Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that provide additional controls for WIM blueprints.

Certain vRealize Automation custom properties are required for WIM blueprints.

VMware, Inc. 28

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑15. Required Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints

Custom Property Description

Image.ISO.Location

Image.ISO.Name

Image.ISO.UserName

Image.ISO.Password

Image.Network.Letter

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the location

of the ISO image from which to boot, for example http://192.168.2.100/site2/winpe.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the name

of the ISO image from which to boot, for

example /ISO/Microsoft/WinPE.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation

provided for your platform. This property is required for WIM-

based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST provisioning,

and SCCM-based provisioning.

Specifies the user name to access the CIFS share in the format username@domain. For Dell iDRAC integrations where the

image is located on a CIFS share that requires authentication to

access.

Specifies the password associated with the

Image.ISO.UserName property. For Dell iDRAC integrations

where the image is located on a CIFS share that requires

authentication to access.

Specifies the drive letter to which the WIM image path is

mapped on the provisioned machine. The default value is K.

Image.WIM.Path

Image.WIM.Name

Image.WIM.Index

Image.Network.User

Image.Network.Password

Specifies the UNC path to the WIM file from which an image is

extracted during WIM-based provisioning. The path format is \\server\share$ format, for example \\lab-ad\dfs$.

Specifies the name of the WIM file, for example win2k8.wim, as

located by the Image.WIM.Path property.

Specifies the index used to extract the correct image from the

WIM file.

Specifies the user name with which to map the WIM image path

(Image.WIM.Path) to a network drive on the provisioned

machine. This is typically a domain account with access to the

network share.

Specifies the password associated with the

Image.Network.User property.

VMware, Inc. 29

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑15. Required Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

Specifies the user name of the machine owner.

Specifies the vCenter Server guest operating system version

(VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier) with which

vCenter Server creates the machine. This operating system

version must match the operating system version to be installed

on the provisioned machine. Administrators can create property

groups using one of several property sets, for example,

VMware[OS_Version]Properties, that are predefined to

include the correct VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

values. This property is for virtual provisioning.

For related information, see the enumeration type

VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier in vSphere API/SDK

Documentation. For a list of currently accepted values, see the

vCenter Server documentation.

Optional custom properties are also available for WIM blueprints.

VMware, Inc. 30

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑16. Common Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints

Custom Property Description

SysPrep.Section.Key

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.AdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.EncryptedAdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.TimeZone

Specifies information to be added to the SysPrep answer file on

machines during the WinPE stage of provisioning. Information

that already exists in the SysPrep answer file is overwritten by these custom properties. Section represents the name of the

section of the SysPrep answer file, for example GuiUnattended or UserData. Key represents a key name in the section. For

example, to set the time zone of a provisioned machine to West

Pacific Standard Time, define the custom property

GuiUnattended.UserData.TimeZone and set the value to 275.

For a full list of sections, keys, and accepted values, see the

System Preparation Utility for Windows documentation.

The following Section.Key combinations can be specified for

WIM-based provisioning:

GuiUnattended

AdminPassword

EncryptedAdminPassword

TimeZone

UserData

ProductKey

FullName

ComputerName

OrgName

Identification

DomainAdmin

DomainAdminPassword

JoinDomain

JoinWorkgroup

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdminPassword

Sysprep.Identification.JoinDomain

Sysprep.Identification.JoinWorkgroup

SysPrep.UserData.ComputerName

SysPrep.UserData.FullName

SysPrep.UserData.OrgName

SysPrep.UserData.ProductKey

VirtualMachine.Admin.ThinProvision

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to the

target domain in Active Directory. Do not include the user

domain in the credentials that you send to vCloud Director or

vCloud Air.

Specifies the password to associate with the

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin property.

Specifies the name of the domain to join in Active Directory.

Specifies the name of the workgroup to join if not using a

domain.

Specifies a machine name, for example lab-client005.

Specifies the full name of a user.

Specifies the organization name of the user.

Specifies the Windows product key.

Determines whether thin provisioning is used on ESX compute

resources. Disk provisioning is abstracted from the underlying

storage. Set to True to use thin provisioning. Set to False to use

standard provisioning. This property is for virtual provisioning.

VMware, Inc. 31

Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Blueprints

You can add certain custom properties to a vCloud Air or vCloud Director machine component definition

in a blueprint.

For machine components that do not have a Network or Security tab, you can add network and security

custom properties, such as VirtualMachine.Network0.Name, to their Properties tab in the design

canvas. NSX network, security, and load balancer properties are only applicable to vSphere machines.

Table 1‑17. Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Machine Components in the Design Canvas

Custom Property Description

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdminPassword

Sysprep.Identification.JoinDomain

VirtualMachine.DiskN.IsFixed

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicy

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to the

target domain in Active Directory. Do not include the user

domain in the credentials that you send to vCloud Director or

vCloud Air.

Specifies the password to associate with the

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin property.

Specifies the name of the domain to join in Active Directory.

Disables the editing of a specific disk when reconfiguring a

machine. Set to True to disable display of the edit capacity

option for a specific volume. The True value is case-sensitive. The N value is the 0-based index of the disk.

Alternatively, you can set the VirtualMachine.DiskN.IsFixed custom property to True in

the VirtualMachineProperties table in the database or use the

Repository API to specify a URI value such

as .../Repository/Data/ManagementModelEntities.svc/V

irtualMachines(guid'60D93A8A-F541-4CE0-

A6C6-78973AC0F1D2')/VirtualMachineProperties.

Specifies the storage reservation policy to use to find storage for disk N. Also assigns the named storage reservation policy to a volume. To use this property, substitute the volume number for N

in the property name and specify a storage reservation policy

name as the value. This property is equivalent to the storage

reservation policy name specified on the blueprint. Disk

numbering must be sequential. This property is valid for all

Virtual and vCloud reservations. This property is not valid for

Physical, Amazon, or OpenStack reservations.

VirtualMachine.EULA.AcceptAll

VMware, Inc. 32

Set to true to specify that all the EULAs for the VM templates of

the vCloud Air or vCloud Director endpoints are accepted during

provisioning.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑17. Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Machine Components in the Design Canvas (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name

Specifies the name of the network to connect to, for example the network device N to which a machine is attached. This is

equivalent to a network interface card (NIC).

By default, a network is assigned from the network paths

available on the reservation on which the machine is

provisioned. Also see

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AddressType and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName.

You can ensure that a network device is connected to a specific

network by setting the value of this property to the name of a

network on an available reservation. For example, if you give

properties for N= 0 and 1, you get 2 NICs and their assigned

value, provided the network is selected in the associated

reservation.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the

machine is assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are

not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific reservation, do not

use this property on a reservation. This property is not

supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand routed networks.

For an example of how to use this custom property to

dynamically set VirtualMachine.Network0.Name based on a

consumer's selection from a list of predefined available

networks, see the Adding a Network Selection Drop-Down in

vRA 7 blog post.

For related information, see Custom Properties for Networking

and Security.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AddressType

Specifies how IP address allocation is supplied to the network provider, where NetworkN is the network number, starting with 0.

The following values are available:

DHCP

Static

MANUAL (available for vCloud Air and vCloud Director only)

This property is available for configuring vCloud Air,

vCloud Director, and vSphere machine components in the

blueprint. Also see VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name. This

property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand

routed networks.

VMware, Inc. 33

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑17. Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Machine Components in the Design Canvas (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Reconfigure.DisableHotCpu

VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins

Set to true to specify that the reconfigure machine action

restarts the specified machine. By default, the reconfigure

machine action does not restart the machine.

Performing a hot add of CPU, memory, or storage causes the

reconfigure machine action to fail and not to restart the machine

unless the Hot Add setting is enabled in vSphere for the

machine or template. You can add

VirtualMachine.Reconfigure.DisableHotCpu=true to a

machine component in a vRealize Automation blueprint to

disable the Hot Add setting and force the machine to restart

regardless of the vSphere Hot Add setting. The custom property

is only available for machine types that support hardware

reconfiguration, which are vSphere, vCloud Air, and

vCloud Director.

Specifies a threshold integer value for a compute resource such

that lease synchronization between vCloud Director and

vRealize Automation only occur for vCloud Director or

vCloud Air-provisioned machines that are set to expire in

vCloud Director or vCloud Air in that time period. If a conflict is

found, the lease value is synchronized to match the lease length

defined in vRealize Automation. The default

VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins value is 720 minutes,

which is 12 hours. If VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins is

not present, the default value is used. For example, if the default

values are used, vRealize Automation runs the lease

synchronization check workflow every 45 minutes, which is the

workflow default, and only the leases of machines that are set to

expire within 12 hours are changed to match the lease length

defined in vRealize Automation.

VCloud.Owner.UseEndpointAccount

VCloud.Template.MakeIdenticalCopy

VMware, Inc. 34

Set to true to assign the endpoint account as the vCloud Air or

vCloud Director machine owner for provisioning and import

operations. For change ownership operations, the owner is not

changed on the endpoint. If not specified or set to false, the

vRealize Automation owner is the machine owner.

Set to true to clone an identical copy of the vCloud Air or

vCloud Director template for machine provisioning. The machine

is provisioned as an identical copy of the template. Settings

specified in the template, including storage path, supersede

settings specified in the blueprint. The only changes from the

template are the names of the cloned machines, which are

generated from the machine prefix specified in the blueprint.

vCloud Air or vCloud Director machines that are provisioned as

identical copies can use networks and storage profiles that are

not available in the vRealize Automation reservation. To avoid

having unaccounted reservation allocations, verify that the

storage profile or network specified in the template is available

in the reservation.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑17. Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Machine Components in the Design Canvas (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VMware.SCSI.Sharing

VMware.SCSI.Type

Specifies the sharing mode of the machine’s VMware SCSI bus.

Possible values are based on the VirtualSCSISharing ENUM

value and include noSharing, physicalSharing, and

virtualSharing.

The VMware.SCSI.Sharing property is not available for use

with the CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow. If you specify the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow when configuring your

machine component in the blueprint design canvas, you cannot

use the VMware.SCSI.Sharing property.

For vCloud Air, vCloud Director, or vSphere machine

components in blueprints, specifies the SCSI machine type

using one of the following case-sensitive values:

buslogic

Use BusLogic emulation for the virtual disk.

lsilogic

Use LSILogic emulation for the virtual disk (default).

lsilogicsas

Use LSILogic SAS 1068 emulation for the virtual disk.

pvscsi

Use para-virtualization emulation for the virtual disk.

none

Use if a SCSI controller does not exist for this machine.

The VMware.SCSI.Type property is not available for use with

the CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow. If you specify the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow when configuring your

machine component in the blueprint design canvas, you cannot

use the VMware.SCSI.Type property.

Custom Properties for Networking and Security

The vRealize Automation custom properties for networking specify configuration for a specific network

device on a machine.

VMware, Inc. 35

Custom Properties Reference

Network assignments are performed during machine allocation. vRealize Automation retrieves network

information from the blueprint. If you want to assign more than one network, use the

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom property on your machine blueprint. If you do not provide

custom properties, allocation only assigns one network which is picked using a round robin method in

conjunction with the selected reservation.

Note With the exception of the following properties, the properties in the table do not apply to Amazon

Web Services:

agent.download.url

software.agent.service.url

software.ebs.url

For machine components that do not have a Network or Security tab, you can add network and security

custom properties, such as VirtualMachine.Network0.Name, to their Properties tab in the design

canvas. NSX network, security, and load balancer properties are only applicable to vSphere machines.

Note Network-specific custom properties that point to on-demand networks are not supported. For

example, you cannot use network custom properties, such as

VirtualMachine.Network0.NetworkProfileName, for on-demand NAT and on-demand routed network

components.

By default, a machine has one network device configured with the VirtualMachine.Network0.Name

property. You can configure additional network devices by using the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom property, where N is the network number.

The numbering of network properties must be sequential, starting with 0. For example, if you specify

custom properties for only VirtualMachine.Network0 and VirtualMachine.Network2, the properties

for VirtualMachine.Network2 are ignored, because the preceding network,

VirtualMachine.Network1, was not specified.

Although general support for vCloud Networking and Security has ended, the VCNS custom properties

continue to be valid for NSX purposes. See the Knowledge Base article 2144733.

VMware, Inc. 36

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration

Custom Property Description

agent.download.url

NSX.Edge.ApplianceSize

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP address of

your Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port for your software

agent file, for example

https://Private_IP:1443/software-

service/resources/nobel-agent.jar.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.agent.service.url and software.ebs.url, to a

reservation or the compute resource endpoint. You can also use

this property to specify a private address and port when using

PAT or NAT translation and port forwarding.

Specifies the allowed NSX edge appliance size types for the

provisioned machine or deployment. The options are:

compact

For small deployments, POCs, and single service use.

CPU = 1

RAM = 512 MB

Disk = 512 MB

large

For small to medium or multi-tenant deployments.

CPU = 2

RAM = 1 GB

Disk = 512 MB

quadlarge

For high throughput equal-cost multi-path routing (ECMP) or

high performance firewall deployments.

CPU = 4

RAM = 1 GB

Disk = 512 MB

xlarge

For L7 load balancing and dedicated core deployments.

CPU = 6

RAM = 8 GB

Disk = 4.5GB (4GB Swap)

For related information, see System Requirements for NSX.

VMware, Inc. 37

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup

When set to true (NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true), enables

high availability (HA) mode on the NSX edge machine that is

deployed from the blueprint.

When used with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup=port_group_name,

this property allows you to configure an NSX edge during

blueprint authoring.

You can add this property to an NSX load balancer component

in the vRealize Automation blueprint or to the

vRealize Automation blueprint itself.

Must be used in conjunction with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup= port_group_name.

Creates an internal interface or internal vNIC attached to the

specified port group name, for example

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup=VM Network where

VM Network is an HA (high availability) distributed (vLAN-

backed) or NSX logical switch port group. NSX HA mode

requires at least one internal network interface, or vNIC.

When used with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true, this

property allows you to configure high availability (HA) an NSX

edge during blueprint authoring.

When using one arm load balancer with HA enabled, you must

specify a separate port group for the HA.

Note The specified port group network cannot be a member of

the reservation pool, as the property's use of the port group

conflicts with the normal deployment's use of the port group,

resulting in the following error:

Portgroup must be unique within an Edge...

Must be used in conjunction with

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true.

VMware, Inc. 38

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

NSX.Validation.Disable.Single.Edge.Uplink

software.agent.service.url

When set to true, the NSX validation that checks for the

following conditions is disabled:

All on-demand NAT networks on the blueprint source the

same external network.

All on-demand routed networks on the blueprint that use the

load balancer VIP source the same external network.

All on-demand load balancer components on the blueprint

have VIPs on the same external network or on-demand

networks backed by the same external network.

Disabling this validation check can result in a deployment that

succeeds but in which some network components might be

inaccessible.

If not present or if set to false, the validation check is enabled

(default).

A single NSX edge can only support one external network as its

uplink network. Multiple IPs from the same external network are

supported. While a blueprint can contain any number of external

or on-demand network components, NSX only supports one

external network as the uplink network.

This property can only be specified at the blueprint level. It

cannot be specified on a component in the blueprint canvas.

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP address of

your Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port for the

vRealize Automation software service API, for example

https://Private_IP:1443/software-service/api.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.ebs.url and agent.download.url, to a reservation

or the compute resource endpoint. You can also use this

property to specify a private address and port when using PAT

or NAT and port forwarding.

software.ebs.url

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP address of

your Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port for the

vRealize Automation event broker service, for example

https://Private_IP:1443/event-broker-service/api.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.agent.service.url and agent.download.url, to

a reservation or the compute resource endpoint. You can also

use this property to specify a private address and port when

using PAT or NAT and port forwarding.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Address

Specifies the IP address of network device N in a machine

provisioned with a static IP address.

For Amazon, see Amazon.elasticIpAddress.ipAddress .

VMware, Inc. 39

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddress

Indicates whether the MAC address of network device N is

generated or user-defined (static). This property is available for

cloning.

The default value is generated. If the value is static, you must

also use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddress to specify

the MAC address.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation. This

property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand

routed networks.

Specifies the MAC address of a network device N. This property

is available for cloning.

If the value of VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType is

generated, this property contains the generated address.

If the value of VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType is

static, this property specifies the MAC address. For virtual

machines provisioned on ESX server hosts, the address must

be in the range specified by VMware. For details, see vSphere

documentation.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation. This

property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand

routed networks.

VMware, Inc. 40

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name

Specifies the name of the network to connect to, for example the network device N to which a machine is attached. This is

equivalent to a network interface card (NIC).

By default, a network is assigned from the network paths

available on the reservation on which the machine is

provisioned. Also see

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AddressType and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName.

You can ensure that a network device is connected to a specific

network by setting the value of this property to the name of a

network on an available reservation. For example, if you give

properties for N= 0 and 1, you get 2 NICs and their assigned

value, provided the network is selected in the associated

reservation.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the

machine is assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are

not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific reservation, do not

use this property on a reservation. This property is not

supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand routed networks.

For an example of how to use this custom property to

dynamically set VirtualMachine.Network0.Name based on a

consumer's selection from a list of predefined available

networks, see the Adding a Network Selection Drop-Down in

vRA 7 blog post.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PortID

Specifies the port ID to use for network device N when using a

dvPort group with a vSphere distributed switch.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation. This

property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand

routed networks.

VMware, Inc. 41

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName

Specifies the name of a network profile from which to assign a static IP address to network device N or from which to obtain the

range of static IP addresses that can be assigned to network device N of a cloned machine, where N=0 for the first device, 1

for the second, and so on.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName to select

any network from the reservation regardless of whether it

has a corresponding network profile.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName to

only select networks that have a corresponding network

profile with the same name.

The network profile that the property points to is used to allocate

an IP address. However, the provisioned machine is attached to

any network that is selected in the reservation using a round-

robin fashion model.

Changing this property value after the network is assigned has

no effect on the expected IP address values for the designated

machines.

With WIM-based provisioning for virtual machines, you can use

this property to specify a network profile and network interface or

you can use the Network section of the Virtual Reservation

page. You can also assign the network interface to a virtual

network using the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom

property.

The following attributes of the network profile are available to

enable static IP assignment in a cloning blueprint:

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation.

You cannot use this custom property to define an on-demand

NAT or on-demand routed network profile name. Because on-

demand network profile names are generated at allocation time

(during provisioning), their names are unknown when creating or

editing the blueprint. To specify NSX on-demand network

information, use the applicable network component in the

blueprint design canvas for your vSphere machine components.

VMware, Inc. 42

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.name Specifies the NSX load balancing pools to which the virtual

Configures attributes of the network profile specified in

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is

requested, network and IP address allocation is performed

before the machine is assigned to a reservation. Because

blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to a specific

reservation, do not use this property on a reservation.

machine is assigned during provisioning. The virtual machine is

assigned to all service ports of all specified pools. The value is an edge/pool name or a list of edge/pool names separated by

commas. Names are case-sensitive.

Note You can add a machine IP address to an existing load

balancer by using the VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names

custom property. vRealize Automation and NSX use the first

member of the specified edge load balancer pool to determine

the new member port and monitor port settings. However, NSX

6.2 does not require that the member port setting be specified.

To avoid provisioning failure when using

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names with NSX 6.2 to add a

machine to an existing pool, you must specify a port value for

the first member of the load balancer pool in NSX.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of a

custom property. For example, the following properties might list

load balancing pools set up for general use and machines with

high, moderate, and low performance requirements:

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.moderate

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.high

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.low

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.name Specifies the NSX security group or groups to which the virtual

machine is assigned during provisioning. The value is a security

group name or a list of names separated by commas. Names

are case-sensitive.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of the

property, which can be used separately or in combination. For

example, the following properties can list security groups

intended for general use, for the sales force, and for support:

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.sales

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.support

VMware, Inc. 43

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑18. Custom Properties for Networking Conﬁguration (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.name Specifies the NSX security tag or tags to which the virtual

machine is associated during provisioning. The value is a

security tag name or a list of names separated by commas.

Names are case-sensitive.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of the

property, which can be used separately or in combination. For

example, the following properties can list security tags intended

for general use, for the sales force, and for support:

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.sales

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.support

VMware.Endpoint.NSX.HideDiscoveredSecurityObjects

Set to true to hide newly discovered security objects in the

active tenant for the NSX endpoints to which the security objects

are associated. Otherwise, all new security objects are available

to all tenants after data collection, provided that the security

object is for an endpoint in which you have a reservation. This

option allows you to prevent users from accessing security

objects when you want to assign those objects to a single tenant

or to mask from all tenants. Set to false to toggle back to global,

which enables all new security objects to be available to all

tenants after data collection, provided that the security object is

for an endpoint in which you have a reservation.

To take effect, the fabric administrator adds the

VMware.Endpoint.NSX.HideDiscoveredSecurityObjects

custom property to the associated NSX endpoint that is

associated to a vSphere endpoint. The setting applies to the

next inventory data collection. Existing security objects remain

unchanged.

To change the tenancy setting of a security object that has

already been data-collected, such as existing security objects

after upgrading to the current vRealize Automation release, you

can edit the security object’s Tenant ID setting programmatically

by using the vRealize Automation REST API or

vRealize CloudClient. The available Tenant ID settings for the

NSX endpoint are as follows:

"<global>" - the security object is available to all tenants.

This is the default setting for existing security objects after

upgrade to this release and for all new security objects that

you create.

"<unscoped>" - the security object is not available to any

tenants. Only the system administrator can access the

security object. This is an ideal setting when defining

security objects that are to eventually be assigned to a

specific tenant.

"tenant_id_name" - the security object is only available to

a single, named tenant.

VMware, Inc. 44

Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties and Property Groups for Containers

You can add predefined property groups to a containers component in a vRealize Automation blueprint.

When machines are provisioned by using a blueprint that contain these properties, the provisioned

machine is registered as a Docker Container host machine.

Containers for vRealize Automation supplied the following two property groups of container-specific

custom properties. When you add a container component to a blueprint you can add these property

groups to the container to register provisioned machines as container hosts.

Container host properties with certificate authentication

Container host properties with user/password authentication

These property groups are visible in vRealize Automation when you select Administration > Property

Dictionary > Property Groups.

Because property groups are shared by all tenants, if you are working in a multi-tenant environment,

consider cloning and customizing your properties. By uniquely naming property groups and properties in

the groups, you can edit them to define custom values for use in a specific tenant.

The most commonly used properties are Container.Auth.PublicKey and

Container.Auth.PrivateKey in which the container administrator provides the client certificate for

authenticating with the container host.

Table 1‑19. Containers Custom Properties

Property Description

containers.ipam.driver

containers.network.driver

For use with containers only. Specifies the IPAM driver to be

used when adding a Containers network component to a

blueprint. The supported values depend on the drivers installed

in the container host environment in which they are used. For

example, a supported value might be infoblox or calico

depending on the IPAM plug-ins that are installed on the

container host.

For use with containers only. Specifies the network driver to be

used when adding a Containers network component to a

blueprint. The supported values depend on the drivers installed

in the container host environment in which they are used. By

default, Docker-supplied network drivers include bridge, overlay,

and macvlan, while Virtual Container Host (VCH)-supplied

network drivers include the bridge driver. Third-party network

drivers such as weave and calico might also be available,

depending on what network plug-ins are installed on the

container host.

Container

Container.Auth.User

VMware, Inc. 45

For use with containers only. The default value is App.Docker

and is required. Do not modify this property.

For use with containers only. Specifies the user name for

connecting to the Containers host.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑19. Containers Custom Properties (Continued)

Property Description

Container.Auth.Password

Container.Auth.PublicKey

Container.Auth.PrivateKey

Container.Connection.Protocol

Container.Connection.Scheme

Container.Connection.Port

Extensibility.Lifecycle.Properties.VMPSMasterWorkfl

ow32.MachineActivated

Extensibility.Lifecycle.Properties.VMPSMasterWorkfl

ow32.Disposing

For use with containers only. Specifies either the password for

the user name or the public or private key password to be used.

Encrypted property value is supported.

For use with containers only. Specifies the public key for

connecting to the Containers host.

For use with containers only. Specifies private key for

connecting to the Containers host. Encrypted property value is

supported.

For use with containers only. Specifies the communication

protocol. The default value is API and is required. Do not modify

this property.

For use with containers only. Specifies the communication

scheme. The default is https.

For use with containers only. Specifies the Containers

connection port. The default is 2376.

For use with containers only. Specifies the event broker property

to expose all Containers properties and is used for registering a

provisioned host. The default value is Container* and is

required. Do not modify this property.

For use with containers only. Specifies the event broker property

to expose all Containersproperties above and is used for

unregistering a provisioned host. The default value is

Container* and is required. Do not modify this property.

Custom Properties for PXE Provisioning

PXE is the only provisioning method supported for Cisco UCS Manager. You can use the network

bootstrap program with vRealize Automation custom properties to initiate WIM, SCCM, or Linux Kickstart

provisioning. You can also use custom properties to call your own PowerShell scripts. Linux Kickstart

provisioning does not require custom properties.

Custom Properties for Provisioning With PowerShell Scripts

You can use these properties for calling PowerShell scripts.

VMware, Inc. 46

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑20. Custom Properties for Calling PowerShell Scripts

Custom Property Description

Pxe.Setup.ScriptName

Pxe.Clean.ScriptName

Specifies a custom EPI PowerShell script to run on the machine

before it is started by using the PXE network boot program. The

value is the name assigned to the script when it is uploaded to

the model manager, for example setup.ps1.

Specifies the name of an EPI PowerShell script installed in the

vRealize Automation Model Manager, to run on the machine

after it is provisioned. The value is the name assigned to the

script when it is uploaded to the Model Manager, for example

clean.ps1.

Custom Properties For PXE and SCCM Provisioning

You can use these properties for PXE and SCCM provisioning.

Table 1‑21. Custom Properties for PXE and SCCM Provisioning

Custom Property Description

SCCM.Collection.Name

SCCM.Server.Name

SCCM.Server.SiteCode

Specifies the name of the SCCM collection that contains the

operating system deployment task sequence.

Specifies the fully qualified domain name of the SCCM server on

which the collection resides, for example lab-sccm.lab.local.

Specifies the site code of the SCCM server.

SCCM.Server.UserName

SCCM.Server.Password

SCCM.CustomVariable.

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to the

SCCM server.

Specifies the password associated with the

SCCM.Server.UserName property.

Specifies the value of a custom variable, where Name is the

name of any custom variable to be made available to the SCCM

task sequence after the provisioned machine is registered with

the SCCM collection. The value is determined by your choice of

custom variable. If your integration requires it, you can use

SCCM.RemoveCustomVariablePrefix to remove the

SCCM.CustomVariable. prefix from your custom variable.

Custom Properties For PXE and WIM Provisioning

You can use these properties for PXE and WIM provisioning.

Table 1‑22. Custom Properties for PXE and WIM Provisioning

Custom Property Description

Image.Network.Letter

Image.WIM.Path

Specifies the drive letter to which the WIM image path is

mapped on the provisioned machine. The default value is K.

Specifies the UNC path to the WIM file from which an image is

extracted during WIM-based provisioning. The path format is \\server\share$ format, for example \\lab-ad\dfs$.

VMware, Inc. 47

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑22. Custom Properties for PXE and WIM Provisioning (Continued)

Custom Property Description

Image.WIM.Name

Image.WIM.Index

Image.Network.User

Image.Network.Password

SysPrep.Section.Key

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.AdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.EncryptedAdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.TimeZone

Specifies the name of the WIM file, for example win2k8.wim, as

located by the Image.WIM.Path property.

Specifies the index used to extract the correct image from the

WIM file.

Specifies the user name with which to map the WIM image path

(Image.WIM.Path) to a network drive on the provisioned

machine. This is typically a domain account with access to the

network share.

Specifies the password associated with the

Image.Network.User property.

Specifies information to be added to the SysPrep answer file on

machines during the WinPE stage of provisioning. Information

that already exists in the SysPrep answer file is overwritten by these custom properties. Section represents the name of the

section of the SysPrep answer file, for example GuiUnattended or UserData. Key represents a key name in the section. For

example, to set the time zone of a provisioned machine to West

Pacific Standard Time, define the custom property

GuiUnattended.UserData.TimeZone and set the value to 275.

For a full list of sections, keys, and accepted values, see the

System Preparation Utility for Windows documentation.

The following Section.Key combinations can be specified for

WIM-based provisioning:

GuiUnattended

AdminPassword

EncryptedAdminPassword

TimeZone

UserData

ProductKey

FullName

ComputerName

OrgName

Identification

DomainAdmin

DomainAdminPassword

JoinDomain

JoinWorkgroup

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to the

target domain in Active Directory. Do not include the user

domain in the credentials that you send to vCloud Director or

vCloud Air.

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdminPassword

Specifies the password to associate with the

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin property.

Sysprep.Identification.JoinDomain

VMware, Inc. 48

Specifies the name of the domain to join in Active Directory.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑22. Custom Properties for PXE and WIM Provisioning (Continued)

Custom Property Description

Sysprep.Identification.JoinWorkgroup

SysPrep.UserData.ComputerName

SysPrep.UserData.FullName

SysPrep.UserData.OrgName

SysPrep.UserData.ProductKey

Specifies the name of the workgroup to join if not using a

domain.

Specifies a machine name, for example lab-client005.

Specifies the full name of a user.

Specifies the organization name of the user.

Specifies the Windows product key.

Custom Properties for OVF Import

When you import an OVF to a blueprint, you can import and configure several settings as custom

properties.

Table 1‑23. Custom Properties for Blueprints In Which An OVF Is Imported

Custom Property Description

VMware.Ovf.Thumbprint

If the OVF resides on an HTTPS server that has a certificate,

this property stores the value of that certificate's thumbprint and

is used to validate that certificate. It has no relevance when the

OVF is hosted on an HTTP server. The property is automatically

created when you import an OVF by using the

ImportOvfWorkflow provisioning workflow in the blueprint

component's user interface. If you create the blueprint

programmatically with vRealize Automation REST APIs or

vRealize CloudClient, you must manually create the property.

Note The thumbprint can be stored in a comma-separated

format to support a certificate chain.

When the VMware.Ovf.TrustAllCertificates is present and

set to true, the VMware.Ovf.Thumbprint property is ignored.

VMware.Ovf.TrustAllCertificates

VMware.Ovf.Configuration.X An OVF can contain user-configurable properties, for example a

When this property is present and set to true, the

Vmware.Ovf.Thumbprint property is ignored and no certificate

validation is performed when you import an OVF by using the

ImportOvfWorkflow provisioning workflow.

property that sets the root password of a VM provisioned from

the OVF. When you import an OVF into a blueprint, the user-

configurable properties that are defined in the OVF are parsed

and converted into custom properties of the form Vmware.Ovf.Configuration.X, where X is the name of the

user-configurable property from the OVF.

Custom Properties for vRealize Automation Guest Agent

If you have installed the vRealize Automation guest agent in your templates for cloning or in your WinPE,

you can use custom properties to run custom scripts within the guest operating system of a provisioned

machine after the machine is fully deployed.

VMware, Inc. 49

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑24. Custom Properties for Customizing Provisioned Machines with a Guest Agent

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.AddOwnerToAdmins

VirtualMachine.Admin.AllowLogin

VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Active

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Label

Set to True (default) to add the machine’s owner, as specified by

the VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner property, to the local

administrators group on the machine.

This property is not available for provisioning by cloning.

Set to True (default) to add the machine owner to the local

remote desktop users group, as specified by the

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner property.

If the guest agent is installed as a service on a template for

cloning, set to True on the machine blueprint to enable the guest

agent service on machines cloned from that template. When the

machine is started, the guest agent service is started. Set to

False to disable the guest agent. If set to False, the enhanced

clone workfow will not use the guest agent for guest operating

system tasks, reducing its functionality to

VMwareCloneWorkflow. If not specified or set to anything other

than False, the enhanced clone workflow sends work items to

the guest agent.

Set to True (default) to specify that the machine's disk N is active. Set to False to specify that the machine's disk N is not

active.

Specifies the label for a machine’s disk N. The disk label

maximum is 32 characters. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used with a guest agent, specifies the label of a machine's disk N inside the guest operating system.

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Letter

VirtualMachine.DiskN.FS

VirtualMachine.DiskN.FileSystem

VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay

Specifies the drive letter or mount point of a machine’s disk N.

The default is C. For example, to specify the letter D for Disk 1,

define the custom property as VirtualMachine.Disk1.Letter

and enter the value D. Disk numbering must be sequential.

When used in conjunction with a guest agent, this value

specifies the drive letter or mount point under which an additional disk N is mounted by the guest agent in the guest

operating system.

For use with Windows guest agent (gugent). Specifies the file system of the machine’s disk N. The options are NTFS (default),

FAT and FAT32. For example usage, see the

10_setupdisks.bat Windows agent script.

For use with Linux guest agent (gugent). Specifies the file system of the machine’s disk N. The options are ext3 and ext4.

The xfs value is not supported. For example usage, see the

30_DiskSetup.sh Linux agent script.

Specifies the time to wait after customization is complete and

before starting the guest operating system customization. The

value must be in HH:MM:SS format. If the value is not set, the

default value is one minute (00:01:00). If you choose not to

include this custom property, provisioning can fail if the virtual

machine reboots before guest agent work items are completed,

causing provisioning to fail.

VMware, Inc. 50

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑24. Custom Properties for Customizing Provisioned Machines with a Guest Agent (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.Name

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath

Set to True to prevent the provisioning workflow from sending

work items to the guest agent until all customizations are

complete.

Specifies the descriptive name of a software application N or

script to install or run during provisioning. This is an optional and

information-only property. It serves no real function for the

enhanced clone workflow or the guest agent but it is useful for a

custom software selection in a user interface or for software use

reporting.

Specifies the full path to an application's install script. The path

must be a valid absolute path as seen by the guest operating

system and must include the name of the script filename.

You can pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {CustomPropertyName} in the path string. For

example, if you have a custom property named ActivationKey

whose value is 1234, the script path is D:\InstallApp.bat –

key {ActivationKey}. The guest agent runs the command

D:\InstallApp.bat –key 1234. Your script file can then be

programmed to accept and use this value.

Insert {Owner} to pass the machine owner name to the script.

You can also pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {YourCustomProperty} in the path string. For

example, entering the

value \\vra-

scripts.mycompany.com\scripts\changeIP.bat runs the

changeIP.bat script from a shared location, but entering the

value \\vra-

scripts.mycompany.com\scripts\changeIP.bat

{VirtualMachine.Network0.Address} runs the changeIP

script but also passes the value of the

VirtualMachine.Network0.Address property to the script as

a parameter.

VMware, Inc. 51

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑24. Custom Properties for Customizing Provisioned Machines with a Guest Agent (Continued)

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt

Allows vRealize Automation to obtain an encrypted string that is

passed as a properly formatted

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath custom property

statement to the gugent command line.

You can provide an encrypted string, such as your password, as

a custom property in a command-line argument. This allows you

to store encrypted information that the guest agent can decrypt

and understand as a valid command-line argument. For

example, the VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath =

c:\dosomething.bat password custom property string is not

secure as it contains an actual password.

To encrypt the password, you can create a vRealize Automation

custom property, for example MyPassword = password, and

enable encryption by selecting the available check box. The

guest agent decrypts the [MyPassword] entry to the value in the

custom property MyPassword and runs the script as

c:\dosomething.bat password.

Create custom property MyPassword = password where password is the value of your actual password. Enable

encryption by selecting the available check box.

Set custom property

VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt as

VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt = true.

Set custom property

VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath as

VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath =

c:\dosomething.bat [MyPassword].

If you set VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt to false, or

do not create the VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt

custom property, then the string inside the square brackets

( [ and ]) is not decrypted.

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOName

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOLocation

Specifies the path and filename of the ISO file relative to the

datastore root. The format

is /folder_name/subfolder_name/file_name.iso. If a value

is not specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Specifies the storage path that contains the ISO image file to be

used by the application or script. Format the path as it appears

on the host reservation, for example netapp-1:it_nfs_1. If a

value is not specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Custom Properties for BMC BladeLogic Conﬁguration Manager Integration

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for BMC

BladeLogic Configuration Manager integration.

VMware, Inc. 52

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑25. Custom Properties Required for BMC BladeLogic Conﬁguration Manager Integrations

Custom Property Description

VirtualMachine.EPI.Type

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner

BMC.Software.Install

EPI.Server.Name

BMC.Service.Profile

BMC.Software.BatchLocation

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

Specifies the type of external provisioning infrastructure.

Specifies the user name of the machine owner.

Set to True to enable BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager

integration.

Specifies the name of the external provisioning infrastructure

server, for example, the name of the server hosting BMC

BladeLogic. If at least one general BMC EPI agent was installed

without specifying a BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager

host, this value directs the request to the desired server.

If only dedicated BMC EPI agents for specific BMC BladeLogic

Configuration Manager hosts were installed, this value must

exactly match the server name configured for one of these

agents.

Specifies the name of the default authentication profile on the

BMC BladeLogic server.

Specifies the location in BMC BladeLogic configuration where

software jobs are deployed. This value must match the

appropriate value of Vrm.Software.IdNNNN. For example, a

valid value could be /Application Deployment.

Specifies the vCenter Server guest operating system version

(VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier) with which

vCenter Server creates the machine. This operating system

version must match the operating system version to be installed

on the provisioned machine. Administrators can create property

groups using one of several property sets, for example,

VMware[OS_Version]Properties, that are predefined to

include the correct VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

values. This property is for virtual provisioning.

For related information, see the enumeration type

VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier in vSphere API/SDK

Documentation. For a list of currently accepted values, see the

vCenter Server documentation.

Custom Properties To Make BMC BladeLogic Conﬁguration Manager Software Jobs Available

Configure BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager jobs for vRealize Automation integrations. Make all

software jobs available to machine requesters to select from, or specify a software job to apply to all

machines provisioned from the blueprint.

VMware, Inc. 53

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑26. Custom Properties to Make Software Jobs Available

Custom Property Description

LoadSoftware

Vrm.Software.IdNNNN Specifies a software job or policy to be applied to all machines

Set to True to enable software install options.

provisioned from the blueprint. Set the value to

job_type=job_path, where job_type is the numeral that

represents the BMC BladeLogic job type and job_path is the

location of the job in BMC BladeLogic, for example 4=/Utility/putty. NNNN is a number from 1000 to 1999. The

first property must start with 1000 and increment in numerical

order for each additional property.

1 — AuditJob 2 — BatchJob 3 — ComplianceJob 4 — DeployJob 5 — FileDeployJob 6 — NSHScriptJob 7 — PatchAnalysisJob 8 — SnapshotJob

Optional Custom Properties for BMC BladeLogic Conﬁguration Manager Integrations

You can also use optional custom properties that are commonly used with BMC BladeLogic Configuration

Manager blueprints.

Table 1‑27. Optional Custom Properties for BMC BladeLogic Conﬁguration Manager Integrations

Property Definition

BMC.AddServer.Delay

BMC.AddServer.Retry

Specifies the number of seconds to wait before adding the

machine to BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager. The default

is 30.

Specifies the number of seconds to wait before retrying if the

first attempt to add the machine to BMC BladeLogic

Configuration Manager is unsuccessful. The default is 100.

Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

vRealize Automation includes custom properties that you can use to provide additional controls for HP

Server Automation integration. Some custom properties are required for HP Server Automation

integration. Other custom properties are optional.

Required Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

Certain custom properties are required for a blueprint to work with HP Server Automation.

VMware, Inc. 54

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑28. Required Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

Property Definition

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

VirtualMachine.EPI.Type

EPI.Server.Name

Opsware.Software.Install

Opsware.Server.Name

Opsware.Server.Username

Specifies the vCenter Server guest operating system version

(VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier) with which

vCenter Server creates the machine. This operating system

version must match the operating system version to be installed

on the provisioned machine. Administrators can create property

groups using one of several property sets, for example,

VMware[OS_Version]Properties, that are predefined to

include the correct VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

values. This property is for virtual provisioning.

Specifies the type of external provisioning infrastructure.

Specifies the name of the external provisioning infrastructure

server, for example, the name of the server hosting BMC

BladeLogic. If at least one general BMC EPI agent was installed

without specifying a BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager

host, this value directs the request to the desired server.

Set to True to allow HP Server Automation to install software.

Specifies the fully qualified name of the HP Server Automation

server.

Specifies the user name provided when a password file in the

agent directory was created, for example opswareadmin. This

user name requires administrative access to the HP Server

Automation instance.

Opsware.BootImage.Name

Opsware.Customer.Name

Opsware.Facility.Name

Opsware.Machine.Password

Opsware.OSSequence.Name

Opsware.Realm.Name

Opsware.Register.Timeout

VirtualMachine.CDROM.Attach

Specifies the boot image value as defined in HP Server

Automation for the 32-bit WinPE image, for example winpe32.

The property is not required when provisioning by cloning.

Specifies a customer name value as defined in HP Server

Automation, for example MyCompanyName.

Specifies a facility name value as defined in HP Server

Automation, for example Cambridge.

Specifies the default local administrator password for an

operating system sequence WIM image such as

Opsware.OSSequence.Name as defined in HP Server

Automation, for example P@ssword1.

Specifies the operating system sequence name value as defined

in HP Server Automation, for example Windows 2008 WIM.

Specifies the realm name value as defined in HP Server

Automation, for example Production.

Specifies the time, in seconds, to wait for creation of a

provisioning job to complete.

Set to False to provision the machine without a CD-ROM device.

The default is True.

VMware, Inc. 55

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑28. Required Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration (Continued)

Property Definition

Linux.ExternalScript.Name

Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType

Linux.ExternalScript.Path

Specifies the name of an optional customization script, for

example config.sh, that the Linux guest agent runs after the

operating system is installed. This property is available for Linux

machines cloned from templates on which the Linux agent is

installed.

Specifies the location type of the customization script named in

the Linux.ExternalScript.Name property. This can be either

local or nfs.

Specifies the local path to the Linux customization script or the

export path to the Linux customization on the NFS server. The

value must begin with a forward slash and not include the file

name, for example /scripts/linux/config.sh.

Optional Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

Certain custom properties are optional for a blueprint to work with HP Server Automation.

Table 1‑29. Optional Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

Property Definition

Opsware.ProvFail.Notify

(Optional) Specifies the notification email address for HP Server

Automation to use in the event of provisioning failure, for

example provisionfail@lab.local.

Opsware.ProvFail.Notify

Opsware.ProvSuccess.Notify

Opsware.ProvSuccess.Owner

(Optional) Specifies the HP Server Automation user to whom

ownership is assigned if provisioning fails.

(Optional) Specifies the notification email address for HP Server

Automation to use if provisioning is successful.

(Optional) Specifies the HP Server Automation user to whom

ownership is assigned if provisioning is successful.

Custom Properties That Make HP Server Automation Software Jobs Available

Depending on how your fabric administrator configures HP Server Automation jobs for

vRealize Automation integration, you might have a choice between making all software jobs available to

machine requesters to select, or you can specify jobs to apply to all machines provisioned from your

blueprint.

Table 1‑30. Custom Properties to Make Software Jobs Available

Property Definition

LoadSoftware

Vrm.Software.Id

Set to True to enable software install options.

(Optional) Specifies an HP Server Automation policy to be applied to all machines provisioned from the blueprint. NNNN is

a number from 1000 to 1999. The first property must start with

1000 and increment in numerical order for each additional

property.

VMware, Inc. 56

Custom Properties Reference

Custom Properties Grouped by Name

You can use custom properties to provide additional vRealize Automation controls.

Custom properties have been grouped here by name. To explore custom properties grouped by function,

see Custom Properties Grouped by Function.

Custom Properties Underscore (_)

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with an underscore (_).

VMware, Inc. 57

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑31. Custom Properties Underscore (_) Table

Property Description

_debug_deployment

Except for scale operations which allow partially successful

deployments, the default behavior is to destroy the entire deployment

if any of the individual resources fail to provision. You can override

the default behavior by setting the _debug_deployment custom

property value to true. If provisioning fails, the debugging custom

property stops the resources from being rolled back so you can

identify which of the components failed to provision successfully.

A failed catalog item is inaccessible because it is immediately rolled

back on failure. But when _debug_deployment is set to true,

vRealize Automation treats the otherwise failed deployment as

partially successful, which enables its accessibility. This behavior

matches how failures are treated in scale operations.

If a virtual machine deployment fails, the deployment process does

not have awareness of the machine being provisioned. If it is not

provisioned, then there is nothing for the _debug_deployment

preserve from being rolled back.

To apply the custom property to a blueprint, add

_debug_deployment to the Blueprint Properties page using the

Properties tab when you create or edit a blueprint. The

_debug_deployment property is consumed at the software

provisioning level, not the guest agent or machine provisioning level.

You can also configure vRealize Automation to not delete virtual

machines after deployment failure by using settings in the

VRMAgent.exe.config file.

_deploymentName

_number_of_instances

When added to a blueprint, this property allows you to specify a

custom name for the deployment by setting the value of

_deploymentName to your custom string. If more than one instance

of this deployment is provisioned in a single request, your custom

name becomes a prefix. If you want users to specify their own

deployment names, set this custom property to allow override. The

following two caveats are required for usage:

You must add this property at the blueprint level, not at the

component level. For example, when creating or editing a

blueprint, click the Properties tab and then select Custom

Properties > New to add the _deploymentName property to the

blueprint. Do not add the property to a machine or other

component in the blueprint.

You must add this property as a separate property and not as a

member of a property group.

When added to a blueprint, this property allows you to specify the

number of instances of the deployment that a user can provision in a

single request.

Custom Properties A

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter A.

VMware, Inc. 58

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑32. Custom Properties A Table

Property Description

AD.Lookup.Department

agent.download.url

amazon.AmazonEC2Config.ServiceURL

amazon.ElasticLoadBalancingConfig.ServiceURL

Amazon.ElasticLoadBalancer.Names

Specifies the cost center value that is included in a notification email

sent to approvers. This property value must be specified in the blueprint.

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP address of your

Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port for your software agent file, for

example

https://Private_IP:1443/software-service/resources/nobel-

agent.jar.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.agent.service.url and software.ebs.url, to a

reservation or the compute resource endpoint. You can also use this

property to specify a private address and port when using PAT or NAT

translation and port forwarding.

Specifies the Amazon configuration service URL for Amazon GovCloud,

for example amazon.AmazonEC2Config.ServiceURL=https://ec2.us-

gov-west-1.amazonaws.com.

Specifies the Amazon load balancer configuration service URL for

Amazon GovCloud, for example

amazon.ElasticLoadBalancingConfig.ServiceURL=https://elasticlo

adbalancing.us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com.

Assigns machines that are provisioned by a blueprint to the elastic load

balancers that match the specified values. This property is valid for

vSphere, Amazon, and Hyper-V configurations.

Amazon.Extensions.UserData

amazon.IAMInstanceProfile.ARN

Amazon.Instance.Id

Specifies the name of an Amazon user data script to be run during the

first boot cycle when an instance is launched. The property supports

string substitution from other custom properties to allow for dynamic

requests. You can add the property either to the overall

vRealize Automation blueprint or to an AWS machine component in the

blueprint.

For information about Amazon user data scripts, see the Running

Commands on Your Linux Instance at Launch topic in Amazon Elastic

Compute Cloud product documentation.

You can pass a series of custom properties to the

Amazon.Extensions.UserData property by including them in a file

whose name begins with Amazon.CustomProperty.Shell.

Specifies the AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) instance

profile Amazon Resource Names (ARNs) when requesting an AWS

instance. When you add this property, for example

amazon.IAMInstanceProfile.ARN = IAM Instance Profile ARN(s) value, to a blueprint and then request provisioning from the catalog, the

provisioned Amazon virtual machine or instance contains the specified

IAM role. The DEM reads and includes the property specification, for

example amazon.IAMInstanceProfile.ARN = IAM Instance Profile

ARN(s) value, in the Amazon RunInstanceRequest workflow.

Specifies the Amazon instance ID of a machine provisioned on an

Amazon EC2 endpoint. This property is valid for vSphere and Amazon

configurations.

VMware, Inc. 59

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑32. Custom Properties A Table (Continued)

Property Description

Amazon.Instance.GroupName

Amazon.elasticIpAddress.ipAddress

Amazon.Placement.Tenancy

Amazon.Storage.iops

Amazon.Storage.Type

Specifies the name of the existing AWS placement group for the

associated Amazon endpoint. The placement group must exist in the

target availability zone prior to vRealize Automation data collection of

the endpoint.

Add the Amazon.Instance.GroupName custom property to a blueprint

to specify which AWS placement group is used during machine

provisioning.

Specifies the Amazon IP address where ipAddress is the specific IP

address to assign to the instance.

Set to = dedicated to specify that the AWS connection be specific to a

dedicated tenant. This property is valid for use with VPC subnets.

Specifies the input/output operations per second (IOPS) for the

associated storage device.

Currently, this property is only supported when the

Amazon.Storage.Type property value is io1.

For more information, see Amazon EBS volume types documentation.

Add the Amazon.Storage.iops custom property to a blueprint to

specify the IOPS. The io1 storage type is the only AWS storage type in

which you can set IOPS.

Specifies the Amazon EBS volume type to use for disk storage relative

to the associated Amazon endpoint. All disks are provisioned with the

specified type. You cannot specify a different volume type for each disk.

Set the property value to one of the API Names values provided in

Amazon EBS volume types documentation, for example io1 or gp2.

Add the Amazon.Storage.Type custom property to a blueprint to

specify the EBS volume type to use during machine provisioning.

Azure.Windows.ScriptPath

Azure.Linux.ScriptPath

agent.download.url

Specifies the path to the downloaded script that configures tunneling for

Windows-based systems. Update the path as appropriate for your

deployment.

Specifies the path to the downloaded script that configures tunneling for

Linux-based systems. Update the path as appropriate for your

deployment.

Specifies the URL for the VPN agent on your deployment. The URL

format is https:// Private_IP:1443/software-

service//resources/noble-agent.jar

Custom Properties B

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter B.

VMware, Inc. 60

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑33. Custom Properties B Table

Property Definition

BMC.AddServer.Delay

BMC.AddServer.Retry

BMC.Service.Profile

BMC.Software.BatchLocation

BMC.Software.Install

Specifies the number of seconds to wait before adding the machine to

BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager. The default is 30.

Specifies the number of seconds to wait before retrying if the first attempt

to add the machine to BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager is

unsuccessful. The default is 100.

Specifies the name of the default authentication profile on the BMC

BladeLogic server.

Specifies the location in BMC BladeLogic configuration where software

jobs are deployed. This value must match the appropriate value of

Vrm.Software.IdNNNN. For example, a valid value could

be /Application Deployment.

Set to True to enable BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager integration.

Custom Properties C

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter C.

Table 1‑34. Custom Properties C Table

Property Definition

Cisco.Organization.Dn

Specifies the distinguished name of the Cisco UCS Manager organization

in which Cisco UCS machines provisioned by the business group are

placed, for example org-root/org-Engineering. If the specified organization

does not exist in the Cisco UCS Manager instance that is managing the

machine, provisioning fails. This property is available for business groups

only.

CloneFrom

CloneSpec

Command.DiskPart.Options

Command.FormatDisk.Options

Specifies the name of an existing machine or virtualization platform object

to clone from, for example a template in vCenter Server such as

Win2k8tmpl.

Specifies the name of a customization specification on a cloned machine,

for example a predefined SysPrep object in vCenter Server such as Win2k

Customization Spec. The default value is specified on the blueprint.

When you use WIM-based virtual provisioning on ESX server hosts, set to

Align=64 to use the recommended alignment parameters when you format

and partition the machine’s disk. This property is not available for physical

provisioning.

When you use WIM-based virtual provisioning on ESX server hosts, set

to /A:32K to use the recommended alignment parameters when you format

and partition the machine’s disk. This property is not available for physical

provisioning.

VMware, Inc. 61

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑34. Custom Properties C Table (Continued)

Property Definition

containers.ipam.driver

containers.network.driver

Container

For use with containers only. Specifies the IPAM driver to be used when

adding a Containers network component to a blueprint. The supported

values depend on the drivers installed in the container host environment in

which they are used. For example, a supported value might be infoblox

or calico depending on the IPAM plug-ins that are installed on the

container host.

This property name and value are case-sensitive. The property value is not

validated when you add it. If the specified driver does not exist on the

container host at provisioning time, an error message is returned and

provisioning fails.

For use with containers only. Specifies the network driver to be used when

adding a Containers network component to a blueprint. The supported

values depend on the drivers installed in the container host environment in

which they are used. By default, Docker-supplied network drivers include

bridge, overlay, and macvlan, while Virtual Container Host (VCH)-supplied

network drivers include the bridge driver. Third-party network drivers such

as weave and calico might also be available, depending on what network

plug-ins are installed on the container host.

This property name and value are case-sensitive. The property value is not

validated when you add it. If the specified driver does not exist on the

container host at provisioning time, an error message is returned and

provisioning fails.

For use with containers only. The default value is App.Docker and is

required. Do not modify this property.

Container.Auth.User

Container.Auth.Password

Container.Auth.PublicKey

Container.Auth.PrivateKey

Container.Connection.Protocol

Container.Connection.Scheme

Container.Connection.Port

For use with containers only. Specifies the user name for connecting to the

Containers host.

For use with containers only. Specifies either the password for the user

name or the public or private key password to be used. Encrypted property

value is supported.

For use with containers only. Specifies the public key for connecting to the

Containers host.

For use with containers only. Specifies private key for connecting to the

Containers host. Encrypted property value is supported.

For use with containers only. Specifies the communication protocol. The

default value is API and is required. Do not modify this property.

For use with containers only. Specifies the communication scheme. The

default is https.

For use with containers only. Specifies the Containers connection port. The

default is 2376.

VMware, Inc. 62

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑34. Custom Properties C Table (Continued)

Property Definition

Extensibility.Lifecycle.Properties.VMPSMast

erWorkflow32.MachineActivated

Extensibility.Lifecycle.Properties.VMPSMast

erWorkflow32.Disposing

For use with containers only. Specifies the event broker property to expose

all Containers properties and is used for registering a provisioned host.

The default value is Container* and is required. Do not modify this

property.

For use with containers only. Specifies the event broker property to expose

all Containersproperties above and is used for unregistering a provisioned

host. The default value is Container* and is required. Do not modify this

property.

Custom Properties E

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter E.

Table 1‑35. Custom Properties E Table

Property Definition

EPI.Server.Collection

EPI.Server.Name

Specifies the name of the Citrix provisioning collection to which the machine is to be

registered.

Specifies the name of the external provisioning infrastructure server, for example,

the name of the server hosting BMC BladeLogic. If at least one general BMC EPI

agent was installed without specifying a BMC BladeLogic Configuration Manager

host, this value directs the request to the desired server.

If only dedicated BMC EPI agents for specific BMC BladeLogic Configuration

Manager hosts were installed, this value must exactly match the server name

configured for one of these agents.

Specifies the name of the server hosting HP Server Automation. If at least one

general Opsware EPI agent was installed without specifying a server automation

server, this value directs the request to the desired server.

If only dedicated EPI agents for specific HP server automation servers were

installed, this value must exactly match the server name configured for one of these

agents.

If at least one general EPI agent of the appropriate type

(VirtualMachine.EPI.Type) was installed without specifying a server, this value

directs the request to the desired server. If only dedicated EPI agents for specific

servers of the appropriate type were installed, this value must exactly match the

server name configured for one of these agents.

EPI.Server.Port

EPI.Server.Site

EPI.Server.Store

EPI.Server.VDiskName

VMware, Inc. 63

Specifies the port on which to contact the provisioning server. If you are using a

Citrix provisioning server, omit to specify the default port value of 54321.

Specifies the name of the Citrix provisioning site that contains the collection and

store identified by the EPI.Server.Collection and EPI.Server.Store

properties, for example site1.

Specifies the name of the Citrix provisioning store that contains the vDisk identified

by the EPI.Server.VDiskName property, for example store1.

Specifies the name of the Citrix provisioning vDisk from which to provision, for

example disk1.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑35. Custom Properties E Table (Continued)

Property Definition

ext.policy.activedirectory.customiz

ationWorkflowTag

ext.policy.activedirectory.customiz

ationDeleteWorkflowTag

ext.policy.activedirectory.domain

ext.policy.activedirectory.endpoint

.id

ext.policy.activedirectory.id

ext.policy.activedirectory.machineN

ame

The tag that you added to a custom vRealize Orchestrator workflow. The Active

Directory policy searches for custom workflows with the specified tag and, if found,

uses the tagged workflow when an Active Directory record is created.

The tag that you added to a custom vRealize Orchestrator workflow. The Active

Directory policy searches for custom workflows with the specified tag and, if found,

uses the tagged workflow when an Active Directory record is deleted.

The domain that you want to user rather than the domain in the current Active

Directory policy.

Overrides ext.policy.activedirectory.system.domain value that is specified

in the Active Directory policy.

The policy identifier to use to specify a policy or override policy. The ID that you

provide must be for an existing Active Directory policy.

Overrides ext.policy.activedirectory.system.endpoint.idvalue that is

specified in the Active Directory policy.

The organizational unit that you want to use rather than the organizational unit in the

current Active Directory policy.

Overrides ext.policy.activedirectory.system.id value that is specified in the

Active Directory policy.

The name of the machine in Active Directory that you want to use rather than the

name in the current Active Directory policy.

Overrides ext.policy.activedirectory.system.machineNamevalue that is

specified in the Active Directory policy.

ext.policy.activedirectory.orgunit

ext.policy.activedirectory.system.d

omain

ext.policy.activedirectory.system.e

ndpoint.id

ext.policy.activedirectory.system.i

The organizational unit that you want to user rather than the domain in the current

Active Directory policy.

Overrides ext.policy.activedirectory.system.orgunit value that is specified

in the Active Directory policy.

System property for the domain of the machine in Active Directory.

If you modify this property, which is used by the defined policies, you can disable the

policy. Use ext.policy.activedirectory.domain to override the policy value.

System property for the name of the Active Directory vRealize Orchestrator

endpoint.

If you modify this property, which is used by the defined policies, you can disable the

policy. Use ext.policy.activedirectory.endpoint.id to override the policy

value.

System property for the user-readable ID for the Active Directory policy.

If you modify this property, which is used by the defined policies, you can disable the

policy. Use ext.policy.activedirectory.id to override the policy value.

VMware, Inc. 64

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑35. Custom Properties E Table (Continued)

Property Definition

ext.policy.activedirectory.system.m

achineName

ext.policy.activedirectory.system.o

rgunit

System property for the name of the machine in Active Directory.

If you modify this property, which is used by the defined policies, you can disable the

policy. Use ext.policy.activedirectory.machineName to override the policy

value.

System property for the distinguished name of the Active Directory organizational

unit.

If you modify this property, which is used by the defined policies, you can disable the

policy. Use ext.policy.activedirectory.orgunit to override the policy value.

Custom Properties H

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter H.

Table 1‑36. Custom Properties H Table

Property Definition

Hostname

Hyperv.Network.Type

Specifies the host machine name, overriding the generated machine name

contained in the VirtualMachine.Admin.Name property. If Hostname is not used,

the VirtualMachine.Admin.Name value is used as the machine name. The

maximum number of allowed characters for the Hostname value is 15.

Specifies the network adapter type of the virtual machine. This property is valid for

use with Hyper-V (SCVMM) only. When the value is set to synthetic, specifies that

the blueprint be allowed to provision a Generation-2 machine on a Hyper-V

(SCVMM) 2012 R2 resource. Generation-2 provisioning also requires that the

blueprint includes the Scvmm.Generation2 = true property setting. The legacy

value is not compatible with WinXP or Server 2003 x64 guest operating systems.

The default value is synthetic.

Custom Properties I

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter I.

VMware, Inc. 65

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑37. Custom Properties I Table

Property Definition

Image.ISO.Location

Image.ISO.Name

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the location of the ISO image from which to boot, for example http://192.168.2.100/site2/winpe.iso. The format of

this value depends on your platform. For details, see documentation provided for your

platform. This property is required for WIM-based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and

autoYaST provisioning, and SCCM-based provisioning.

For virtual provisioning with vCenter Server, this specifies the name of a datastore in

the instance that will be accessible to the provisioning compute resource. For virtual

provisioning with XenServer, this specifies the name of a storage repository.

For physical provisioning, this specifies the HTTP URL of the web-accessible location

of the image.

Values for this property are case sensitive. Specifies the name of the ISO image from

which to boot, for example /ISO/Microsoft/WinPE.iso. The format of this value

depends on your platform. For details, see documentation provided for your platform.

This property is required for WIM-based provisioning, Linux Kickstart and autoYaST

provisioning, and SCCM-based provisioning.

For virtual provisioning with vCenter Server, this svalue specifies the path to the

image in the datastore specified by Image.ISO.Location, for

example /MyISOs/Microsoft/MSDN/win2003.iso. The value must use forward

slashes and begin with a forward slash. For virtual provisioning with XenServer, this

value specifies the name of the image in the storage repository specified by

Image.ISO.Location. In virtual provisioning with Hyper-V, this value specifies the full

local path to the image.

For physical provisioning, this value specifies the file name of the image.

Image.ISO.UserName

Image.ISO.Password

Image.WIM.Path

Image.WIM.Name

Image.WIM.Index

Image.Network.User

Image.Network.Password

Image.Network.Letter

Infrastructure.Admin.MachineObject

Specifies the user name to access the CIFS share in the format username@domain.

For Dell iDRAC integrations where the image is located on a CIFS share that requires

authentication to access.

Specifies the password associated with the Image.ISO.UserName property. For Dell

iDRAC integrations where the image is located on a CIFS share that requires

authentication to access.

Specifies the UNC path to the WIM file from which an image is extracted during WIMbased provisioning. The path format is \\server\share$ format, for example \\lab-

ad\dfs$.

Specifies the name of the WIM file, for example win2k8.wim, as located by the

Image.WIM.Path property.

Specifies the index used to extract the correct image from the WIM file.

Specifies the user name with which to map the WIM image path (Image.WIM.Path) to

a network drive on the provisioned machine. This is typically a domain account with

access to the network share.

Specifies the password associated with the Image.Network.User property.

Specifies the drive letter to which the WIM image path is mapped on the provisioned

machine. The default value is K.

Specifies the organizational unit (OU) of the machine. When machines are placed in

the required OU by the business group OU setting, this property is not required.

Infrastructure.Admin.ADUser

VMware, Inc. 66

Specifies the domain administrator user ID. This identifier is used to query Active

Directory users and groups when an anonymous bind cannot be used.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑37. Custom Properties I Table (Continued)

Property Definition

Infrastructure.Admin.ADPassword

Infrastructure.Admin.DefaultDomain

Infrastructure.ResourcePool.Name

Specifies the password associated with the Infrastructure.Admin.ADUser domain

administrator user ID.

Specifies the default domain on the machine.

Specifies the resource pool to which the machine belongs, if any. The default is the

value specified in the reservation from which the machine was provisioned.

Custom Properties L

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter L.

Table 1‑38. Custom Properties L Table

Property Description

Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType

Linux.ExternalScript.Name

Specifies the location type of the customization script named in the

Linux.ExternalScript.Name property. This can be either local or

nfs.

You must also specify the script location using the

Linux.ExternalScript.Path property. If the location type is nfs,

also use the Linux.ExternalScript.Server property.

Specifies the name of an optional customization script, for example

config.sh, that the Linux guest agent runs after the operating system

is installed. This property is available for Linux machines cloned from

templates on which the Linux agent is installed.

If you specify an external script, you must also define its location by

using the Linux.ExternalScript.LocationType and

Linux.ExternalScript.Path properties.

Linux.ExternalScript.Path

Linux.ExternalScript.Server

LoadSoftware

Specifies the local path to the Linux customization script or the export

path to the Linux customization on the NFS server. The value must

begin with a forward slash and not include the file name, for

example /scripts/linux/config.sh.

Specifies the name of the NFS server, for example lab-ad.lab.local, on

which the Linux external customization script named in

Linux.ExternalScript.Name is located.

Set to True to enable software install options.

Custom Properties M

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter M.

VMware, Inc. 67

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑39. Custom Properties M Table

Property Description

MaximumProvisionedMachines

Machine.SSH

Specifies the maximum number of linked clones for one machine snapshot.

The default is unlimited.

Set to True to enable the Connect Using SSH option on the

vRealize Automation Items page for Linux machines provisioned from this

blueprint. If set to True and the Connect using RDP or SSH machine

operation is enabled in the blueprint, all Linux machines that are provisioned

from the blueprint display the Connect Using SSH option to entitled users.

The Connect Using SSH option requires that your browser has a plug-in

that supports SSH, for example the FireSSH SSH terminal client for Mozilla

Firefox and Google Chrome. When the plug-in is present, selecting Connect

Using SSH displays an SSH console and prompts for your administrator

credentials.

Custom Properties N

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter N.

VMware, Inc. 68

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑40. Custom Properties N Table

Property Description

NSX.Edge.ApplianceSize

Specifies the allowed NSX edge appliance size types for the

provisioned machine or deployment. The options are:

compact

For small deployments, POCs, and single service use.

CPU = 1

RAM = 512 MB

Disk = 512 MB

large

For small to medium or multi-tenant deployments.

CPU = 2

RAM = 1 GB

Disk = 512 MB

quadlarge

For high throughput equal-cost multi-path routing (ECMP) or

high performance firewall deployments.

CPU = 4

RAM = 1 GB

Disk = 512 MB

xlarge

For L7 load balancing and dedicated core deployments.

CPU = 6

RAM = 8 GB

Disk = 4.5GB (4GB Swap)

For related information, see System Requirements for NSX.

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability

When set to true (NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true), enables

high availability (HA) mode on the NSX edge machine that is

deployed from the blueprint.

When used with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup=port_group_name,

this property allows you to configure an NSX edge during

blueprint authoring.

You can add this property to an NSX load balancer component

in the vRealize Automation blueprint or to the

vRealize Automation blueprint itself.

Must be used in conjunction with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup= port_group_name.

VMware, Inc. 69

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑40. Custom Properties N Table (Continued)

Property Description

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup

NSX.Validation.Disable.Single.Edge.Uplink

Creates an internal interface or internal vNIC attached to the

specified port group name, for example

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability.PortGroup=VM Network where

VM Network is an HA (high availability) distributed (vLAN-

backed) or NSX logical switch port group. NSX HA mode

requires at least one internal network interface, or vNIC.

When used with NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true, this

property allows you to configure high availability (HA) an NSX

edge during blueprint authoring.

When using one arm load balancer with HA enabled, you must

specify a separate port group for the HA.

Note The specified port group network cannot be a member of

the reservation pool, as the property's use of the port group

conflicts with the normal deployment's use of the port group,

resulting in the following error:

Portgroup must be unique within an Edge...

Must be used in conjunction with

NSX.Edge.HighAvailability=true.

When set to true, the NSX validation that checks for the

following conditions is disabled:

All on-demand NAT networks on the blueprint source the

same external network.

All on-demand routed networks on the blueprint that use the

load balancer VIP source the same external network.

All on-demand load balancer components on the blueprint

have VIPs on the same external network or on-demand

networks backed by the same external network.

Disabling this validation check can result in a deployment that

succeeds but in which some network components might be

inaccessible.

If not present or if set to false, the validation check is enabled

(default).

A single NSX edge can only support one external network as its

uplink network. Multiple IPs from the same external network are

supported. While a blueprint can contain any number of external

or on-demand network components, NSX only supports one

external network as the uplink network.

This property can only be specified at the blueprint level. It

cannot be specified on a component in the blueprint canvas.

Custom Properties O

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter O.

VMware, Inc. 70

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑41. Custom Properties O Table

Property Description

Opsware.BootImage.Name

Opsware.Customer.Name

Opsware.Facility.Name

Opsware.Machine.Password

Opsware.OSSequence.Name

Opsware.ProvFail.Notify

Opsware.ProvFail.Owner

Opsware.ProvSuccess.Notify

Opsware.ProvSuccess.Owner

Specifies the boot image value as defined in HP Server Automation for

the 32-bit WinPE image, for example winpe32. The property is not

required when provisioning by cloning.

Specifies a customer name value as defined in HP Server Automation, for

example MyCompanyName.

Specifies a facility name value as defined in HP Server Automation, for

example Cambridge.

Specifies the default local administrator password for an operating system

sequence WIM image such as Opsware.OSSequence.Name as defined in

HP Server Automation, for example P@ssword1.

Specifies the operating system sequence name value as defined in HP

Server Automation, for example Windows 2008 WIM.

(Optional) Specifies the notification email address for HP Server

Automation to use in the event of provisioning failure, for example

provisionfail@lab.local.

(Optional) Specifies the HP Server Automation user to whom ownership is

assigned if provisioning fails.

(Optional) Specifies the notification email address for HP Server

Automation to use if provisioning is successful.

(Optional) Specifies the HP Server Automation user to whom ownership is

assigned if provisioning is successful.

Opsware.Realm.Name

Opsware.Register.Timeout

Opsware.Server.Name

Opsware.Server.Username

Opsware.Software.Install

Specifies the realm name value as defined in HP Server Automation, for

example Production.

Specifies the time, in seconds, to wait for creation of a provisioning job to

complete.

Specifies the fully qualified name of the HP Server Automation server.

Specifies the user name provided when a password file in the agent

directory was created, for example opswareadmin. This user name

requires administrative access to the HP Server Automation instance.

Set to True to allow HP Server Automation to install software.

Custom Properties P

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter P.

Table 1‑42. Custom Properties P Table

Property Description

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.Delete

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.Execute

Set to True to delete the accounts of destroyed machines, instead of disabling

them.

Set to True to enable the Active Directory cleanup plug-in. By default, each

machine’s account is disabled when it is destroyed.

VMware, Inc. 71

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑42. Custom Properties P Table (Continued)

Property Description

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.MoveToOu

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.UserName

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.Password

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.Domain

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.RenamePrefix

Pxe.Clean.ScriptName

Pxe.Setup.ScriptName

Moves the account of destroyed machines to a new Active Directory

organizational unit. The value is the organization unit to which you are moving the account. This value must be in ou=OU, dc=dc format, for example

ou=trash,cn=computers,dc=lab,dc=local.

Specifies an Active Directory account user name with sufficient privileges to

perform Active Directory actions such as delete, disable, rename, or move Active Directory accounts. The value must be in domain\username format, for

example lab\administrator. This property is required if the vRealize Automation

manager service does not have these rights in a domain, which can occur

when you provision machines in more than one domain.

Specifies the password associated to the

Plugin.AdMachineCleanup.UserName property.

Specifies the Active Directory domain name that contains the machine account

to be destroyed.

Renames the accounts of destroyed machines by adding a prefix. The value is

the prefix string to prepend, for example destroyed_.

Specifies the name of an EPI PowerShell script installed in the

vRealize Automation Model Manager, to run on the machine after it is

provisioned. The value is the name assigned to the script when it is uploaded

to the Model Manager, for example clean.ps1.

Specifies a custom EPI PowerShell script to run on the machine before it is

started by using the PXE network boot program. The value is the name

assigned to the script when it is uploaded to the model manager, for example

setup.ps1.

Custom Properties R

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter R.

Table 1‑43. Custom Properties R Table

Property Description

ReservationPolicyID

RDP.File.Name

Specifies the reservation policy ID, not the reservation policy name. For

example, the name that is returned by the vRealize Orchestrator property

getApplicableReservationPolicies is the reservation policy name, not

the reservation policy ID.

Specifies an RDP file from which to obtain settings, for example

My_RDP_Settings.rdp. The file must reside in the Website\Rdp

subdirectory of the vRealize Automation installation directory. For related

information, see VirtualMachine.Rdp.File and

VirtualMachine.Rdp.SettingN in Custom Properties V.

Custom Properties S

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter S.

VMware, Inc. 72

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑44. Custom Properties S Table

Property Description

SysPrep.Section.Key

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.AdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.EncryptedAdminPassword

SysPrep.GuiUnattended.TimeZone

Specifies information to be added to the SysPrep

answer file on machines during the WinPE stage of

provisioning. Information that already exists in the

SysPrep answer file is overwritten by these custom properties. Section represents the name of the section

of the SysPrep answer file, for example GuiUnattended or UserData. Key represents a key name in the section.

For example, to set the time zone of a provisioned

machine to West Pacific Standard Time, define the

custom property GuiUnattended.UserData.TimeZone

and set the value to 275.

For a full list of sections, keys, and accepted values, see

the System Preparation Utility for Windows

documentation.

The following Section.Key combinations can be

specified for WIM-based provisioning:

GuiUnattended

AdminPassword

EncryptedAdminPassword

TimeZone

UserData

ProductKey

FullName

ComputerName

OrgName

Identification

DomainAdmin

DomainAdminPassword

JoinDomain

JoinWorkgroup

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to

the target domain in Active Directory. Do not include the

user domain in the credentials that you send to

vCloud Director or vCloud Air.

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdminPassword

Specifies the password to associate with the

Sysprep.Identification.DomainAdmin property.

Sysprep.Identification.JoinDomain

Specifies the name of the domain to join in Active

Directory.

Sysprep.Identification.JoinWorkgroup

Specifies the name of the workgroup to join if not using

a domain.

SysPrep.UserData.ComputerName

SysPrep.UserData.FullName

SysPrep.UserData.OrgName

SysPrep.UserData.ProductKey

VMware, Inc. 73

Specifies a machine name, for example lab-client005.

Specifies the full name of a user.

Specifies the organization name of the user.

Specifies the Windows product key.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑44. Custom Properties S Table (Continued)

Property Description

SCCM.Collection.Name

Specifies the name of the SCCM collection that contains

the operating system deployment task sequence.

SCCM.CustomVariable.Name Specifies the value of a custom variable, where Name is

the name of any custom variable to be made available

to the SCCM task sequence after the provisioned

machine is registered with the SCCM collection. The

value is determined by your choice of custom variable. If

your integration requires it, you can use

SCCM.RemoveCustomVariablePrefix to remove the

SCCM.CustomVariable. prefix from your custom

variable.

SCCM.Server.Name

Specifies the fully qualified domain name of the SCCM

server on which the collection resides, for example lab-

sccm.lab.local.

SCCM.Server.SiteCode

SCCM.Server.UserName

Specifies the site code of the SCCM server.

Specifies a user name with administrator-level access to

the SCCM server.

SCCM.Server.Password

Specifies the password associated with the

SCCM.Server.UserName property.

SCCM.RemoveCustomVariablePrefix

Set to true to remove the prefix

SCCM.CustomVariable. from SCCM custom variables

you created by using the custom property

SCCM.CustomVariable.Name.

Scvmm.Generation2

Snapshot.Policy.AgeLimit

Snapshot.Policy.Limit

When set to true, specifies that the blueprint be allowed

to provision a Generation-2 machine on a Hyper-V

(SCVMM) 2012 R2 resource. Generation-2 provisioning

also requires that the blueprint includes the

Hyperv.Network.Type = synthetic property setting.

Sets the age limit, in days, for snapshots that can be

applied to machines. This property applies to vSphere

provisioning.

When a snapshot exceeds the age limit, the Apply

option is no longer available.

When the snapshot age limit is reached, the snapshot

remains but you can no longer revert to it. You can

delete the snapshot using the vSphere client.

Sets the number of snapshots allowed per machine. The

default setting is one snapshot per machine. This

property applies to vSphere provisioning. When set to 0,

the blueprint option to create a snapshot is hidden for all

users except for support and manager roles.

Snapshots are shown in a hierarchical structure.

Depth – Maximum is 31.

Width – There is no limit.

VMware, Inc. 74

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑44. Custom Properties S Table (Continued)

Property Description

software.agent.service.url

software.agent.task.timeout.seconds

software.ebs.url

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP

address of your Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port

for the vRealize Automation software service API, for

example

https://Private_IP:1443/software-service/api.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.ebs.url and agent.download.url, to a

reservation or the compute resource endpoint. You can

also use this property to specify a private address and

port when using PAT or NAT and port forwarding.

Specifies the timeout period, in seconds, for software

scripts that are executing on agents. By default, the

timeout period for software scripts that are executing on

agents is 6 hours.

When using port forwarding, specifies the private IP

address of your Amazon AWS tunnel machine and port

for the vRealize Automation event broker service, for

example

https://Private_IP:1443/event-broker-

service/api.

You can add this property, in combination with

software.agent.service.url and

agent.download.url, to a reservation or the compute

resource endpoint. You can also use this property to

specify a private address and port when using PAT or

NAT and port forwarding.

software.http.proxyHost

Specifies the host name, or address, of the proxy server.

For software content properties to use the proxy server,

you must use both software.http.proxyHost and

software.http.proxyPort.

Note You can use the software proxy settings to define

a content property type value for a software component.

Content properties are URLs that are downloaded by

the agent. The agent uses the variable as a file path to

the locally downloaded file. However, you can use the

software proxy settings to download through the proxy

host instead of from the URL.

VMware, Inc. 75

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑44. Custom Properties S Table (Continued)

Property Description

software.http.proxyPassword

software.http.proxyPort

Specifies the password for the user name with which to

authenticate to the proxy server. Use in combination

with software.http.proxyUser.

The software.http.proxyPassword setting is

required if you use the software.http.proxyUser

setting.

Note You can use the software proxy settings to define

a content property type value for a software component.

Content properties are URLs that are downloaded by

the agent. The agent uses the variable as a file path to

the locally downloaded file. However, you can use the

software proxy settings to download through the proxy

host instead of from the URL.

Specifies the port number of the proxy server.

For software content properties to use the proxy server,

you must use both software.http.proxyHost and

software.http.proxyPort. There is no default

software.http.proxyPort value.

Note You can use the software proxy settings to define

a content property type value for a software component.

Content properties are URLs that are downloaded by

the agent. The agent uses the variable as a file path to

the locally downloaded file. However, you can use the

software proxy settings to download through the proxy

host instead of from the URL.

VMware, Inc. 76

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑44. Custom Properties S Table (Continued)

Property Description

software.http.proxyUser

software.http.noProxyList

Specifies the user name with which to authenticate to

the proxy server. Use in combination with

software.http.proxyPassword.

The software.http.proxyUser setting is optional.

The software.http.proxyPassword setting is

required if you use the software.http.proxyUser

setting.

Note You can use the software proxy settings to define

a content property type value for a software component.

Content properties are URLs that are downloaded by

the agent. The agent uses the variable as a file path to

the locally downloaded file. However, you can use the

software proxy settings to download through the proxy

host instead of from the URL.

Specifies a list of hosts, and optional ports, that cannot

use the proxyHost. The original content property

downloads directly from URLs that match the patterns in

the list. The software.http.noProxyList setting is

only applicable if the proxy server is configured. For

example, for the following comma separated list:

"buildweb.eng.vmware.com,confluence.eng.vmw are.com:443,*.eng.vmware.com:80"

The following statements apply:

Any URL whose HOST is

"buildweb.eng.vmware.com" cannot use the proxy

server.

Any URL whose HOST is

"confluence.eng.vmware.com" and the whose

PORT is 443 cannot use the proxy server.

Any URL whose HOST is anything under the

"eng.vmware.com" namespace and whose PORT is

80 cannot use the proxy server.

Note You can use the software proxy settings to define

a content property type value for a software component.

Content properties are URLs that are downloaded by

the agent. The agent uses the variable as a file path to

the locally downloaded file. However, you can use the

software proxy settings to download through the proxy

host instead of from the URL.

Custom Properties V

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter V.

Although general support for vCloud Networking and Security has ended, the VCNS custom properties

continue to be valid for NSX purposes. See the Knowledge Base article 2144733.

VMware, Inc. 77

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table

Property Description

VbScript.PreProvisioning.Name

VbScript.PostProvisioning.Name

VbScript.UnProvisioning.Name

VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins

Specifies the full path of a Visual Basic script to be run before a

machine is provisioned. For example, %System-Drive%\Program

Files(x86)\VMware\vCAC

Agents\EPI_Agent\Scripts\SendEmail.vbs. The script file must

reside on the system on which the Visual Basic script EPI agent is

installed.

Specifies the full path of a Visual Basic script to be run after a machine

is provisioned. For example, %System-Drive%\Program

Files(x86)\VMware\vCAC

Agents\EPI_Agent\Scripts\SendEmail.vbs. The script file must

reside on the system on which the Visual Basic script EPI agent is

installed.

Specifies the full path of a Visual Basic script to be run when a

machine is destroyed. For example, %System-Drive%\Program

Files (x86)\VMware\vCAC

Agents\EPI_Agent\Scripts\SendEmail.vb. The script file must

reside on the system on which the Visual Basic script EPI agent is

installed.

Specifies a threshold integer value for a compute resource such that

lease synchronization between vCloud Director and

vRealize Automation only occur for vCloud Director or vCloud Air-

provisioned machines that are set to expire in vCloud Director or

vCloud Air in that time period. If a conflict is found, the lease value is

synchronized to match the lease length defined in

vRealize Automation. The default

VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins value is 720 minutes, which is

12 hours. If VCloud.Lease.Sync.TimeBufferMins is not present, the

default value is used. For example, if the default values are used,

vRealize Automation runs the lease synchronization check workflow

every 45 minutes, which is the workflow default, and only the leases of

machines that are set to expire within 12 hours are changed to match

the lease length defined in vRealize Automation.

VCloud.Owner.UseEndpointAccount

VCloud.Template.MakeIdenticalCopy

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Set to true to assign the endpoint account as the vCloud Air or

vCloud Director machine owner for provisioning and import operations.

For change ownership operations, the owner is not changed on the

endpoint. If not specified or set to false, the vRealize Automation

owner is the machine owner.

Set to true to clone an identical copy of the vCloud Air or

vCloud Director template for machine provisioning. The machine is

provisioned as an identical copy of the template. Settings specified in

the template, including storage path, supersede settings specified in

the blueprint. The only changes from the template are the names of

the cloned machines, which are generated from the machine prefix

specified in the blueprint.

vCloud Air or vCloud Director machines that are provisioned as

identical copies can use networks and storage profiles that are not

available in the vRealize Automation reservation. To avoid having

unaccounted reservation allocations, verify that the storage profile or

network specified in the template is available in the reservation.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.name Specifies the NSX load balancing pools to which the virtual machine is

assigned during provisioning. The virtual machine is assigned to all service ports of all specified pools. The value is an edge/pool name or a list of edge/pool names separated by commas. Names are case-

sensitive.

Note You can add a machine IP address to an existing load balancer

by using the VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names custom property.

vRealize Automation and NSX use the first member of the specified

edge load balancer pool to determine the new member port and

monitor port settings. However, NSX 6.2 does not require that the

member port setting be specified. To avoid provisioning failure when

using VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names with NSX 6.2 to add a

machine to an existing pool, you must specify a port value for the first

member of the load balancer pool in NSX.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of a custom

property. For example, the following properties might list load

balancing pools set up for general use and machines with high,

moderate, and low performance requirements:

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.moderate

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.high

VCNS.LoadBalancerEdgePool.Names.low

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.name Specifies the NSX security group or groups to which the virtual

machine is assigned during provisioning. The value is a security group

name or a list of names separated by commas. Names are case-

sensitive.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of the

property, which can be used separately or in combination. For

example, the following properties can list security groups intended for

general use, for the sales force, and for support:

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.sales

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.support

VCNS.SecurityGroup.Names.blueprint_name When using NSX, specifies the Edge Pool with which to associate the

blueprint.

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.name Specifies the NSX security tag or tags to which the virtual machine is

associated during provisioning. The value is a security tag name or a

list of names separated by commas. Names are case-sensitive.

Appending a name allows you to create multiple versions of the

property, which can be used separately or in combination. For

example, the following properties can list security tags intended for

general use, for the sales force, and for support:

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.sales

VCNS.SecurityTag.Names.support

VMware, Inc. 79

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.UseGuestAgent

VirtualMachine.Admin.NameCompletion

VirtualMachine.Admin.ConnectAddress

VirtualMachine.Admin.ConnectAddress.Regex

If the guest agent is installed as a service on a template for cloning,

set to True on the machine blueprint to enable the guest agent service

on machines cloned from that template. When the machine is started,

the guest agent service is started. Set to False to disable the guest

agent. If set to False, the enhanced clone workfow will not use the

guest agent for guest operating system tasks, reducing its functionality

to VMwareCloneWorkflow. If not specified or set to anything other

than False, the enhanced clone workflow sends work items to the

guest agent.

Specifies the domain name to include in the fully qualified domain

name of the machine that the RDP or SSH files generate for the user

interface options Connect Using RDP or Connect Using SSH option.

For example, set the value to myCompany.com to generate the fully

qualified domain name my-machine-name.myCompany.com in the

RDP or SSH file.

Specifies the RDP connection address of the machine to which an

RDP file is downloaded when the user interface option Connect

Using RDP is used or attached to automatic emails. Do not use in a

blueprint or property group unless you require the user to be prompted

and you have not supplied a default value.

Used by a vRealize Automation administrator to define a regular

expression to match an IP address for terminal connections, such as

an RDP connection. If matched, the IP address is saved under the

VirtualMachine.Admin.ConnectAddress custom property.

Otherwise, the first available IP address is designated.

For example, setting the property value to 10.10.0. allows selection

of an IP address from a 10.10.0.* subnet that is assigned to the virtual

machine. If the subnet has not been assigned, the property is ignored.

This property is available for use with OpenStack.

VirtualMachine.Admin.ThinProvision

VirtualMachine.Admin.CustomizeGuestOSDelay

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Determines whether thin provisioning is used on ESX compute

resources. Disk provisioning is abstracted from the underlying storage.

Set to True to use thin provisioning. Set to False to use standard

provisioning. This property is for virtual provisioning.

Specifies the time to wait after customization is complete and before

starting the guest operating system customization. The value must be

in HH:MM:SS format. If the value is not set, the default value is one

minute (00:01:00). If you choose not to include this custom property,

provisioning can fail if the virtual machine reboots before guest agent

work items are completed, causing provisioning to fail.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.Datastore.Cluster.Resourc

eLeaseDurationSec

VirtualMachine.Admin.NetworkInterfaceType

VirtualMachine.Admin.Name

When provisioning to multiple VMs and using SDRS, specifies a value

in seconds, in the range of 30 to 3600, for reserving storage resources

during the RecommendDataStore API call. You can add this property

to a business group or blueprint or when you request provisioning. The

lease lock is only applied to the datastore that is used by the

deployment, not all datastores in the storage cluster. The lease lock is

released when provisioning either completes or fails.

If not specified, no lock is applied to the storage resources at

provisioning time.

Because of memory size considerations, requesting more than 10

VMs simultaneously can cause provisioning failures.

Indicates the network adapter type that is supported and emulated by

the guest operating system. Use to create a new virtual machine and

assign a specific adapter type for a template cloning operation. Use to

modify the network settings of a newly provisioned virtual machine.

The following options are available:

E1000 (default)

VirtIO

RTL8139

RTL8139 VirtIO

Specifies the generated machine name for vSphere, for example

CodyVM01. When creating custom workflows or plug-ins for

customizing a virtual machine name, set this property to match the

name of the virtual machine. This is an internal input property for the

agent to name the virtual machine.

VirtualMachine.Admin.UUID

VirtualMachine.Admin.AgentID

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner

VirtualMachine.Admin.Approver

VirtualMachine.Admin.Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.EncryptPasswords

Note This property is for vSphere only.

The value specified in the blueprint has no effect on this property. This

property is not intended to be used to prompt the user. Use the

HostName property to prompt the user. If the property is set at runtime,

the container name that is created in the hypervisor might not match

the item record name.

Specifies the UUID of the machine. The guest agent records the value

when the machine is created. The value becomes read-only. The

value in the blueprint or property group has no effect on this property.

Specifies the UUID of the guest agent. The guest agent recorsd the

value when the machine is created. The value becomes read-only.

The value in the blueprint or property group has no effect on this

property.

Specifies the user name of the machine owner.

Specifies the user name of the group manager who approved the

machine request.

Specifies the description of the machine as entered or modified by its

owner or an administrator.

If set to True, specifies that the administrator passwords are

encrypted.

VMware, Inc. 81

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.AdministratorEmail

VirtualMachine.Admin.TotalDiskUsage

VirtualMachine.Admin.Hostname

VirtualMachine.Admin.ClusterName

Specifies the manager email addresses or Active Directory accounts

for the business group of the provisioning blueprint. Multiple email

addresses are separated by a comma, for example

AlbertAdmin@VMware.com,WeiLeeMgr@VMware.com.

Specifies the total disk space in GB that the machine uses, including

all disks as specified by the VirtualMachine.DiskN.Size properties

and the swap file as specified by the VMware.Memory. Reservation

property. You specify the value in GB, but the disk space is stored by

vRealize Automation in MB.

Informs the administrator which host is used for provisioning the

machine on the endpoint. The specified value is implemented on the

machine and is populated during data collection. For example, if the

compute resource of a machine is changed, a proxy agent updates the

value of the machine’s VirtualMachine.Admin.Hostname property.

Note This is an internal output property from the agent that is

populated during the data collection process and identifies the host on

which a machine resides.

Informs the administrator which cluster contains the compute resource

for the machine to use.

Note This is an internal output property from the agent that is

populated during the data collection process and identifies the cluster

in which a machine resides.

VirtualMachine.Admin.ApplicationID

VirtualMachine.Admin.AddOwnerToAdmins

VirtualMachine.Admin.AllowLogin

VirtualMachine.Admin.DiskInterfaceType

VirtualMachine.Admin.EagerZero

List the application IDs that can be assigned to a machine.

Set to True (default) to add the machine’s owner, as specified by the

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner property, to the local administrators

group on the machine.

This property is not available for provisioning by cloning.

Set to True (default) to add the machine owner to the local remote

desktop users group, as specified by the

VirtualMachine.Admin.Owner property.

Indicates the type of disk drivers. The following disk drivers are

supported:

IDE (default)

VirtIO

This property is for virtual provisioning.

When set to true, specifies that the machine disks are provisioned

using the VMware provisioning format of eager zero.

Thick provision eager zero is a type of thick virtual disk that supports

clustering features such as fault tolerance. Space required for the

virtual disk is allocated at creation time. In contrast to the flat format,

the data remaining on the physical device is zeroed out when the

virtual disk is created. It might take much longer to create disks in this

format than to create other types of disks.

VMware, Inc. 82

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.Admin.ForceHost

VirtualMachine.Admin.HostSelectionPolicy

VirtualMachine.Agent.CopyToDisk

VirtualMachine.Agent.GuiRunOnce

Specifies the name of the ESX host. The property is only honored if

VirtualMachine.Admin.HostSelectionPolicy is set to

EXACT_MATCH.

Note This property is for vSphere only.

When provisioning against a vSphere cluster, you can use the

VirtualMachine.Admin.ForceHost property to specify the host on

which a machine is to be provisioned. This property is used only if

DRS is not set to automatic for the cluster. If the cluster has DRS

enabled and is set to Automatic, vSphere relocates the provisioned

machine when the machine is restarted.

Optionally set to EXACT_MATCH to require the machine to be placed

on the host specified by the VirtualMachine.Admin.ForceHost

property. If the host is unavailable, the request results in a failure. If a

host is not specified, the next best available host is selected. If set to

EXACT_MATCH, an error occurs if the specified host does not have

enough memory or is in maintenance mode.

Note This property applies to vSphere only.

Set to True (default) to copy the guest agent executable file to

%System-Drive%\VRM\Build\Bin on the machine’s disk.

Set to True to include guest agent execution in the SysPrep.inf run

once section. Set to False for the Linux agent to stop the provisioning

workflow.

VirtualMachine.Agent.Reboot

VirtualMachine.CDROM.Attach

VirtualMachine.CPU.Count

VirtualMachine.Customize.WaitComplete

VirtualMachine.Core.Count

Set to True (default) to specify that the guest agent restarts the

machine following installation of the guest operating system.

Set to False to provision the machine without a CD-ROM device. The

default is True.

Specifies the number of CPUs, for example 2, allocated to a machine.

The default is the value specified by the CPU setting on the blueprint.

Note This custom property value is overridden by the CPU value on

the blueprint when the machine is first provisioned.

Set to True to prevent the provisioning workflow from sending work

items to the guest agent until all customizations are complete.

If set to a value greater than zero, specifies the number of cores per

socket when provisioning the virtual machine.

You can use this property on a blueprint to specify cores per virtual

socket or total number of sockets. For example, your licensing terms

might restrict software that is licensed per socket or available

operating systems only recognize so many sockets and additional

CPUs must be provisioned as additional cores.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Letter

VirtualMachine.DiskN.IsFixed

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Label

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Active

Specifies the drive letter or mount point of a machine’s disk N. The

default is C. For example, to specify the letter D for Disk 1, define the

custom property as VirtualMachine.Disk1.Letter and enter the

value D. Disk numbering must be sequential. When used in

conjunction with a guest agent, this value specifies the drive letter or mount point under which an additional disk N is mounted by the guest

agent in the guest operating system.

Disables the editing of a specific disk when reconfiguring a machine.

Set to True to disable display of the edit capacity option for a specific volume. The True value is case-sensitive. The N value is the 0-based

index of the disk.

Alternatively, you can set the VirtualMachine.DiskN.IsFixed

custom property to True in the VirtualMachineProperties table in the

database or use the Repository API to specify a URI value such

as .../Repository/Data/ManagementModelEntities.svc/Virtua

lMachines(guid'60D93A8A-F541-4CE0-

A6C6-78973AC0F1D2')/VirtualMachineProperties.

Specifies the label for a machine’s disk N. The disk label maximum is

32 characters. Disk numbering must be sequential. When used with a guest agent, specifies the label of a machine's disk N inside the guest

operating system.

Set to True (default) to specify that the machine's disk N is active. Set to False to specify that the machine's disk N is not active.

VirtualMachine.DiskN.FS

VirtualMachine.DiskN.FileSystem

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Percent

For use with Windows guest agent (gugent). Specifies the file system of the machine’s disk N. The options are NTFS (default), FAT and

FAT32. For example usage, see the 10_setupdisks.bat Windows

agent script.

For use with Linux guest agent (gugent). Specifies the file system of the machine’s disk N. The options are ext3 and ext4. The xfs value is

not supported. For example usage, see the 30_DiskSetup.sh Linux

agent script.

Specifies the percentage of the disk N to be formatted by a guest

agent for the machine’s use. That machine cannot use the remaining

portion of the disk.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicy

VirtualMachine.DiskN.StorageReservationPolicyM

ode

VirtualMachine.DiskN.Storage

Specifies the storage reservation policy to use to find storage for disk N. Also assigns the named storage reservation policy to a volume. To use this property, substitute the volume number for N in the property

name and specify a storage reservation policy name as the value. This

property is equivalent to the storage reservation policy name specified

on the blueprint. Disk numbering must be sequential. This property is

valid for all Virtual and vCloud reservations. This property is not valid

for Physical, Amazon, or OpenStack reservations.

You can use VirtualMachine.Disk

N.StorageReservationPolicyMode to prevent provisioning from

failing if there is insufficient space on the datastores in a storage

reservation policy. Use this custom property to allow

vRealize Automation to select a datastore outside the specified

storage reservation policy in cases where there is not sufficient space

remaining on the datastores in the policy.

Allocates disk N to the best available storage reservation policy.

Specifies the datastore on which to place the machine disk N, for

example DATASTORE01. This property is also used to add a single datastore to a linked clone blueprint. N is the index (starting at 0) of

the volume to assign. Enter the name of the datastore to assign to the

volume. This is the datastore name as it appears in the Storage Path

on the Edit Compute Resource page. Disk numbering must be

sequential.

VirtualMachine.EPI.Type

VirtualMachine.EULA.AcceptAll

VirtualMachine.Host.TpmEnabled

VirtualMachine.Memory.Size

Specifies the type of external provisioning infrastructure.

Set to BMC for BMC BladeLogic integration.

Set to CitrixProvisioning for Citrix provisioning server integration.

Set to true to specify that all the EULAs for the VM templates of the

vCloud Air or vCloud Director endpoints are accepted during

provisioning.

Limits virtual machine placement to hosts that have a Trust Protection

Module (TPM) device installed and recognized by ESX and vSphere.

The default value is False.

All hosts in a cluster must have a Trust Protection Module device

installed. If no acceptable hosts or clusters are found, the machine

cannot be provisioned until this property is removed.

Specifies the size of the machine's memory in MB, such as 1024. The

default is the value specified by the memory setting on the blueprint.

Note This custom property setting is overridden by the memory

setting on the blueprint when the machine is first provisioned.

VMware, Inc. 85

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Address

Specifies the IP address of network device N in a machine provisioned

with a static IP address.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation. This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-

demand routed networks.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AdditionAddressM Defines additional M IP address allocated for an OpenStack instance

for network N, excluding the IP address set specified by the VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Address. property. More addresses are

displayed on the Network tab in the Additional Addresses column.

This property is used by OpenStack machine state data collection.

While this property is only data-collected by the OpenStack endpoint,

it is not specific to OpenStack and can be used for lifecycle

extensibility by other endpoint types.

This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand

routed networks.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AddressType

Specifies how IP address allocation is supplied to the network provider, where NetworkN is the network number, starting with 0. The

following values are available:

DHCP

Static

MANUAL (available for vCloud Air and vCloud Director only)

The MANUAL value also requires that you specify an IP address.

This property is available for configuring vCloud Air, vCloud Director,

and vSphere machine components in the blueprint. Also see

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name. This property is not supported for

on-demand NAT or on-demand routed networks.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType

Indicates whether the MAC address of network device N is generated

or user-defined (static). This property is available for cloning.

The default value is generated. If the value is static, you must also use

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddress to specify the MAC

address.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation. This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-

demand routed networks.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddress

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name

Specifies the MAC address of a network device N. This property is

available for cloning.

If the value of VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType is

generated, this property contains the generated address.

If the value of VirtualMachine.NetworkN.MacAddressType is static,

this property specifies the MAC address. For virtual machines

provisioned on ESX server hosts, the address must be in the range

specified by VMware. For details, see vSphere documentation.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation. This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-

demand routed networks.

Specifies the name of the network to connect to, for example the network device N to which a machine is attached. This is equivalent to

a network interface card (NIC).

By default, a network is assigned from the network paths available on

the reservation on which the machine is provisioned. Also see

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.AddressType and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName.

You can ensure that a network device is connected to a specific

network by setting the value of this property to the name of a network

on an available reservation. For example, if you give properties for N=

0 and 1, you get 2 NICs and their assigned value, provided the

network is selected in the associated reservation.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested, network and

IP address allocation is performed before the machine is assigned to a

reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to be allocated to

a specific reservation, do not use this property on a reservation. This

property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand routed

networks.

For an example of how to use this custom property to dynamically set

VirtualMachine.Network0.Name based on a consumer's selection

from a list of predefined available networks, see the Adding a Network

Selection Drop-Down in vRA 7 blog post.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PortID

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Specifies the port ID to use for network device N when using a dvPort

group with a vSphere distributed switch.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation. This property is not supported for on-demand NAT or on-

demand routed networks.

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName and

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName

Specifies the name of a network profile from which to assign a static IP address to network device N or from which to obtain the range of static IP addresses that can be assigned to network device N of a cloned machine, where N=0 for the first device, 1 for the second, and

so on.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName to select any

network from the reservation regardless of whether it has a

corresponding network profile.

Use VirtualMachine.NetworkN.NetworkProfileName to only

select networks that have a corresponding network profile with the

same name.

The network profile that the property points to is used to allocate an IP

address. However, the provisioned machine is attached to any

network that is selected in the reservation using a round-robin fashion

model.

Changing this property value after the network is assigned has no

effect on the expected IP address values for the designated machines.

With WIM-based provisioning for virtual machines, you can use this

property to specify a network profile and network interface or you can

use the Network section of the Virtual Reservation page. You can also

assign the network interface to a virtual network using the

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Name custom property.

The following attributes of the network profile are available to enable

static IP assignment in a cloning blueprint:

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation.

You cannot use this custom property to define an on-demand NAT or

on-demand routed network profile name. Because on-demand

network profile names are generated at allocation time (during

provisioning), their names are unknown when creating or editing the

blueprint. To specify NSX on-demand network information, use the

applicable network component in the blueprint design canvas for your

vSphere machine components.

VMware, Inc. 88

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SubnetMask

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.Gateway

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryDns

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.PrimaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.SecondaryWins

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSuffix

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes

Configures attributes of the network profile specified in

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.ProfileName.

VirtualMachine.NetworkN custom properties are specific to

individual blueprints and machines. When a machine is requested,

network and IP address allocation is performed before the machine is

assigned to a reservation. Because blueprints are not guaranteed to

be allocated to a specific reservation, do not use this property on a

reservation.

When specifying values for multiple DNS search suffixes using

VirtualMachine.NetworkN.DnsSearchSuffixes, you can use

commas to separate values for a Windows deployment. These

properties are not supported for on-demand NAT or on-demand routed

networks.

VirtualMachine.Rdp.File

VirtualMachine.Rdp.SettingN

VirtualMachine.Reconfigure.DisableHotCpu

Specifies the file that contains RDP settings to be used when opening

an RDP link to the machine. Can be used together with, or as an alternative to, VirtualMachine.Rdp.SettingN. The file must be

located in the vRealize Automation server installation directory, for

example %SystemDrive%\Program Files

x86\VMware\vCAC\Server\Rdp\console.rdp. You must create the

Rdp directory.

Specifies the RDP settings to be used when opening an RDP link to the machine. N is a unique number used to distinguish one RDP

setting from another. For example, to specify the RDP authentication

level so that no authentication requirement is specified, define the

custom property VirtualMachine.Rdp.Setting1 and set the value

to authentication level:i:3. For information about available RDP

settings, and their correct syntax, see Microsoft Windows RDP

documentation such as RDP Settings for Remote Desktop Services in

Windows Server.

Set to true to specify that the reconfigure machine action restarts the

specified machine. By default, the reconfigure machine action does

not restart the machine.

Performing a hot add of CPU, memory, or storage causes the

reconfigure machine action to fail and not to restart the machine

unless the Hot Add setting is enabled in vSphere for the machine or

template. You can add

VirtualMachine.Reconfigure.DisableHotCpu=true to a machine

component in a vRealize Automation blueprint to disable the Hot Add

setting and force the machine to restart regardless of the vSphere Hot

Add setting. The custom property is only available for machine types

that support hardware reconfiguration, which are vSphere, vCloud Air,

and vCloud Director.

VirtualMachine.Request.Layout

Specifies the property layout to be used in the virtual machine request

page. The value must match the name of the layout to be used.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.Name

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath

Specifies the descriptive name of a software application N or script to

install or run during provisioning. This is an optional and information-

only property. It serves no real function for the enhanced clone

workflow or the guest agent but it is useful for a custom software

selection in a user interface or for software use reporting.

Specifies the full path to an application's install script. The path must

be a valid absolute path as seen by the guest operating system and

must include the name of the script filename.

You can pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {CustomPropertyName} in the path string. For example, if

you have a custom property named ActivationKey whose value is

1234, the script path is D:\InstallApp.bat –key

{ActivationKey}. The guest agent runs the command

D:\InstallApp.bat –key 1234. Your script file can then be

programmed to accept and use this value.

You can also pass custom property values as parameters to the script by inserting {YourCustomProperty} in the path string. For example,

entering the

value \\vra-scripts.mycompany.com\scripts\changeIP.bat

runs the changeIP.bat script from a shared location, but entering the

value \\vra-scripts.mycompany.com\scripts\changeIP.bat

{VirtualMachine.Network0.Address} runs the changeIP script

but also passes the value of the

VirtualMachine.Network0.Address property to the script as a

parameter.

Insert {Owner} to pass the machine owner name to the script.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt

Allows vRealize Automation to obtain an encrypted string that is

passed as a properly formatted

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ScriptPath custom property

statement to the gugent command line.

You can provide an encrypted string, such as your password, as a

custom property in a command-line argument. This allows you to store

encrypted information that the guest agent can decrypt and

understand as a valid command-line argument. For example, the

VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath = c:\dosomething.bat

password custom property string is not secure as it contains an actual

password.

To encrypt the password, you can create a vRealize Automation

custom property, for example MyPassword = password, and enable

encryption by selecting the available check box. The guest agent

decrypts the [MyPassword] entry to the value in the custom property

MyPassword and runs the script as c:\dosomething.bat password.

Create custom property MyPassword = password where password is the value of your actual password. Enable encryption

by selecting the available check box.

Set custom property VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt as

VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt = true.

Set custom property VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath

VirtualMachine.Software0.ScriptPath =

c:\dosomething.bat [MyPassword].

If you set VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt to false, or do not

create the VirtualMachine.ScriptPath.Decrypt custom property,

then the string inside the square brackets ( [ and ]) is not decrypted.

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOName

VirtualMachine.SoftwareN.ISOLocation

VirtualMachine.Storage.Name

Specifies the path and filename of the ISO file relative to the datastore

root. The format

is /folder_name/subfolder_name/file_name.iso. If a value is not

specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Specifies the storage path that contains the ISO image file to be used

by the application or script. Format the path as it appears on the host

reservation, for example netapp-1:it_nfs_1. If a value is not

specified, the ISO is not mounted.

Identifies the storage path on which the machine resides. The default

is the value specified in the reservation that was used to provision the

machine.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VirtualMachine.Storage.AllocationType

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Enab

led

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Beha

vior

Stores collected groups to a single datastore. A distributed

environment stores disks round-robin style. Specify one of the

following values:

Collected

Keep all disks together.

Distributed

Allow disks to be placed on any datastore or datastore cluster that

is available in the reservation.

For an example of how to use the

VirtualMachine.Storage.AllocationType property to create

datastore clusters, see the Keeping Multiple Disks Together blog post.

If set to True, the storage cluster automation on the machine is

enabled. If set to False, then storage cluster automation is disabled on

the machine. The storage cluster automation type is determined by the

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Behavior custom

property.

Specifies an SDRS behavior type when

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Enabled is set to

True.

The available behavior type values are automated or manual.

The VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Enabled and

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Behavior

properties are set after the machine is provisioned and after inventory

data collection is finished. If automation is disabled,

VirtualMachine.Storage.Cluster.Automation.Behavior is not

present on the machine.

VirtualMachine.Storage.ReserveMemory

VirtualMachine.VDI.Type

VMware.AttributeN.Name

VMware.AttributeN.Value

Set to True to manage vSwap storage allocation to ensure availability

and set allocation in the reservation. vSwap allocation is considered

when you create or reconfigure a virtual machine. vSwap allocation

checking is only available for vSphere endpoints.

Note If you do not specify the

VirtualMachine.Storage.ReserveMemory custom property when

you create or provision the machine from vRealize Automation, swap

space availability is not ensured. If you add the property for an already

provisioned machine, and the allocated reservation is full, the storage

allocated in the reservation might exceed the actual allocated storage.

Specifies the type of virtual desktop infrastructure.

For XenDesktop provisioning, set to XenDesktop.

Specifies the name of an attribute in vRealize Orchestrator. For

example, it specifies the value of the attribute used in the VMware.AttributeN.Name property. Replace the letter N with a

number, starting with 0 and increasing for each attribute to set.

Specifies the value of the attribute used in the VMware.AttributeN.Name property. Replace the letter N with a

number, starting with 0 and increasing for each attribute to set.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VMware.Endpoint.Openstack.IdentityProvider.Dom

ain.Name

VMware.Endpoint.Openstack.IdentityProvider.Ver

sion

VMware.Endpoint.Openstack.Release

VMware.Endpoint.NSX.HideDiscoveredSecurityObje

cts

Allows vRealize Automation to support required Keystone V3 domain-

name authentication. If Keystone V3 is in effect, you can use the

property to designate a specific domain for the OpenStack endpoint to

authenticate with a Keystone V3 OpenStack identity provider.

For new endpoints, add the custom property to designate a

specific domain.

For upgraded or migrated endpoints, add the custom property only

if data collection fails after upgrade or migration.

Specifies the version of OpenStack identity provider (Keystone) to use

when authenticating an OpenStack endpoint. Configure a value of 3 to

authenticate with Keystone V3 OpenStack identity provider. If you use

any other value, or do not use this custom property, authentication

defaults to Keystone V2.

Deprecated. Specifies the OpenStack release, for example Havana or

Icehouse, when creating an OpenStack endpoint. Required for 6.2.1,

6.2.2, and 6.2.3 OpenStack provisioning.

Set to true to hide newly discovered security objects in the active

tenant for the NSX endpoints to which the security objects are

associated. Otherwise, all new security objects are available to all

tenants after data collection, provided that the security object is for an

endpoint in which you have a reservation. This option allows you to

prevent users from accessing security objects when you want to

assign those objects to a single tenant or to mask from all tenants. Set

to false to toggle back to global, which enables all new security objects

to be available to all tenants after data collection, provided that the

security object is for an endpoint in which you have a reservation.

To take effect, the fabric administrator adds the

VMware.Endpoint.NSX.HideDiscoveredSecurityObjects custom

property to the associated NSX endpoint that is associated to a

vSphere endpoint. The setting applies to the next inventory data

collection. Existing security objects remain unchanged.

To change the tenancy setting of a security object that has already

been data-collected, such as existing security objects after upgrading

to the current vRealize Automation release, you can edit the security

object’s Tenant ID setting programmatically by using the

vRealize Automation REST API or vRealize CloudClient. The available

Tenant ID settings for the NSX endpoint are as follows:

"<global>" - the security object is available to all tenants. This is

the default setting for existing security objects after upgrade to this

release and for all new security objects that you create.

"<unscoped>" - the security object is not available to any tenants.

Only the system administrator can access the security object. This

is an ideal setting when defining security objects that are to

eventually be assigned to a specific tenant.

"tenant_id_name" - the security object is only available to a

single, named tenant.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VMware.Hardware.Version

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem

VMware.SCSI.Type

Specifies the VM hardware version to be used for vSphere settings.

Supported values are currently vmx-04, vmx-07, vmx-08, vmx-09 and

vmx-10. This property is applicable for VM Create and VM Update

workflows and is available only for basic workflow blueprints.

Specifies the vCenter Server guest operating system version

(VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier) with which vCenter Server

creates the machine. This operating system version must match the

operating system version to be installed on the provisioned machine.

Administrators can create property groups using one of several

property sets, for example, VMware[OS_Version]Properties, that

are predefined to include the correct

VMware.VirtualCenter.OperatingSystem values. This property is

for virtual provisioning.

When this property has a non-Windows value, the Connect Using

RDP user interface option is disabled. The property can be used in a

virtual, cloud or physical blueprint.

For related information, see the enumeration type

VirtualMachineGuestOsIdentifier in vSphere API/SDK

Documentation. For a list of currently accepted values, see the

vCenter Server documentation.

For vCloud Air, vCloud Director, or vSphere machine components in

blueprints, specifies the SCSI machine type using one of the following

case-sensitive values:

buslogic

Use BusLogic emulation for the virtual disk.

lsilogic

Use LSILogic emulation for the virtual disk (default).

lsilogicsas

Use LSILogic SAS 1068 emulation for the virtual disk.

pvscsi

Use para-virtualization emulation for the virtual disk.

none

Use if a SCSI controller does not exist for this machine.

The VMware.SCSI.Type property is not available for use with the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow. If you specify the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow when configuring your machine

component in the blueprint design canvas, you cannot use the

VMware.SCSI.Type property.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VMware.SCSI.Sharing

VMware.Memory.Reservation

VMware.Network.Type

Specifies the sharing mode of the machine’s VMware SCSI bus.

Possible values are based on the VirtualSCSISharing ENUM value

and include noSharing, physicalSharing, and virtualSharing.

If you specify the CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow when

configuring your machine component in the blueprint design canvas,

the VMware.SCSI.Sharing property is not available.

The VMware.SCSI.Sharing property is not available for use with the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow. If you specify the

CloneWorkflow provisioning workflow when configuring your machine

component in the blueprint design canvas, you cannot use the

VMware.SCSI.Sharing property.

Defines the amount of reserved memory for the virtual machine in MB,

for example 1024. Setting this value also reduces the size of the

virtual machine swap file on disk by the amount specified.

Specifies the network to connect the VM as specified in the

reservation. The network adapter on the machine must be connected

to a unique network.

The following adapter type values are available:

Flexible (default )

VirtualPCNet32 (not compatible with vSphere).

E1000 or VirtualE1000

VMXNET or VirtualVMXNET

VMXNET2

VMXNET3

Set to E1000 when provisioning Windows 32-bit virtual machines on

ESX server hosts to ensure that machines are created with the correct

network adapter. This property is not used for physical provisioning.

VMware.Ovf.Thumbprint

If the OVF resides on an HTTPS server that has a certificate, this

property stores the value of that certificate's thumbprint and is used to

validate that certificate. It has no relevance when the OVF is hosted

on an HTTP server. The property is automatically created when you

import an OVF by using the ImportOvfWorkflow provisioning

workflow in the blueprint component's user interface. If you create the

blueprint programmatically with vRealize Automation REST APIs or

vRealize CloudClient, you must manually create the property.

Note The thumbprint can be stored in a comma-separated format to

support a certificate chain.

When the VMware.Ovf.TrustAllCertificates is present and set to

true, the VMware.Ovf.Thumbprint property is ignored.

VMware.Ovf.TrustAllCertificates

When this property is present and set to true, the

Vmware.Ovf.Thumbprint property is ignored and no certificate

validation is performed when you import an OVF by using the

ImportOvfWorkflow provisioning workflow.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VMware.Ovf.Configuration.X An OVF can contain user-configurable properties, for example a

property that sets the root password of a VM provisioned from the

OVF. When you import an OVF into a blueprint, the user-configurable

properties that are defined in the OVF are parsed and converted into custom properties of the form Vmware.Ovf.Configuration.X, where X is the name of the user-configurable property from the OVF.

VMware.VCenterOrchestrator.EndpointName

VMware.VirtualCenter.Folder

VDI.Server.Website

Overrides a specified endpoint setting or specifies that a particular

endpoint be used during the vRealize Automation IaaS provisioning

process. The value of this property can be set to an applicable

vRealize Orchestrator endpoint, such as external VRO, available in

the environment.

Specifies the name of the inventory folder in the data center in which

to put the virtual machine. The default is VRM, which is also the

vSphere folder in which vRealize Automation places provisioned

machines if the property is not used. This value can be a path with

multiple folders, for example production\email servers. A proxy

agent creates the specified folder in vSphere if the folder does not

exist. Folder names are case-sensitive. This property is available for

virtual provisioning.

Specifies the server name of the Citrix Web interface site to use in

connecting to the machine. If the value of VDI.Server.Name is a

XenDesktop farm, this property must have an appropriate value or the

machine owner cannot connect to the machine using XenDesktop. If

this property is not specified, the VDI.Server.Name property

determines the desktop delivery controller to connect to, which must

be the name of a server that hosts a desktop delivery controller.

Note If the Citrix Web Interface (WI) has been replaced with

StoreFront (SF), you can use this property instead of

VDI.Server.Name to connect to the XenDesktop server. An example

value is VDI.Server.Website=sqa-

xddc-7.sqa.local/Citrix/StoreWeb. See VDI.Server.Name for

more information.

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

VDI.Server.Name

Specifies the server name, which hosts the desktop delivery controller,

to register with, or the name of a XenDesktop farm that contains

desktop delivery controllers with which to register.

If the value is a XenDesktop farm name, the VDI.Server.Website

property value must be the URL of an appropriate Citrix web interface

site to use in connecting to the machine.

If the value is a server name, and at least one general XenDesktop

VDI agent was installed without specifying a desktop delivery

controller server, this value directs the request to the desired server. If

the value is a server name, and only dedicated XenDesktop VDI

agents for specific DDC servers were installed, this value must exactly

match the server name configured for a dedicated agent.

Note For more information about how to make StoreFront the default

page in IIS, see Citrix documentation. See also

VDI.Server.Website.

Note Changes in the Citrix web interface protocol have impacted

how the VDI.Server.Name default value is recognized. The value of

the VDI.Server.Name property is used as the default connection

string to open the Citrix web interface when users connect to a virtual

desktop. It is always the DNS/IP of the XD server. If that value does

not connect to the Citrix interface, you are unable to access your VMs.

However, you can use the VDI.Server.Website custom property

when the Citrix web interface is hosted on a server other than the

XenDesktop server. When this property is present on the VM, it is

used instead of VDI.Server.Name.

VDI.Server.Group

VDI.ActiveDirectory.Interval

VDI.ActiveDirectory.Timeout

VDI.ActiveDirectory.Delay

For XenDesktop 5, specifies the name of the XenDesktop group to

add machines to and the name of the catalog to which the group belongs, in the group_name;catalog_name format.

For XenDesktop 4, specifies the name of the XenDesktop group to

which machines are to be added. XenDesktop 4 preassigned groups

are supported.

Specifies an optional interval value in time span format for virtual

desktop infrastructure machine Active Directory registration check.

The default value is 00:00:15 (15 seconds).

Specifies an optional timeout value to wait before retrying Active

Directory registration. The default value is 00:00:15 (30 minutes).

Specifies an optional delay time value in time span format between

successfully adding a machine to Active Directory and initiation of

XenDesktop registration. The default value is 00:00:05 (5 seconds).

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Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

Vrm.DataCenter.Location

Vrm.DataCenter.Policy

Allows you to use a blueprint to provision machines on more than one

compute resource. You can add the Vrm.DataCenter.Location

property to a blueprint, or enable the Display Location on Request

option in the blueprint, to require that the user supply a datacenter

location when they request machine provisioning.

Note If you enable the Display Location on Request option on the

blueprint, you do not need to also add the custom property.

Datacenter locations are configured in a DataCenterLocations.xml

file, which provides the location values that are applied to compute

resources.

For related information about adding datacenter locations, see Configuring vRealize Automation.

Because the Vrm.DataCenter.Location property cannot access the

contents of the DatacenterLocations.xml file, you must rely on

users to provide property values that match the locations provided in

the DataCenterLocations.xml file.

Use this property if you want to use the datacenter location value as

input to an external action for another custom property.

Specifies whether provisioning must use a compute resource

associated with a particular location, or if any location is suitable. To

enable this feature, you must add data center to a location file.

Associate each compute resource with a location.

Set to Exact (default) to provision a requested machine on a compute

resource associated with the location specified on the blueprint. The

request fails if no reservations match the requested location. If the

property is not present, the Exact default is used.

Set to NonExact to provision a requested machine on a compute

resource with sufficient capacity and associated with the location

specified on the blueprint. If that compute resource is not available,

then use the next available compute resource with sufficient capacity

without regard to location.

Vrm.ProxyAgent.Uri

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Allows you to override the default Vrm.ProxyAgent.Uri value that is

derived from the VMPS endpoint address in the vRealize Automation

Manager Service configuration file. The configuration setting is often

set to the local machine but you might want to set it to the virtual IP

(VIP) address.

You can specify the Vrm.ProxyAgent.Uri custom property on a

blueprint. Sample syntax is as follows:

Vrm.ProxyAgent.Uri=https://loadbalancer-vip/VMPS2Proxy

Custom Properties Reference

Table 1‑45. Custom Properties V Table (Continued)

Property Description

Vrm.Software.IdNNNN

This row is specific to BMC BladeLogic.

Vrm.Software.IdNNNN

This row is specific to HP Server Automation.

Custom Properties X

Specifies a software job or policy to be applied to all machines

provisioned from the blueprint. Set the value to job_type=job_path,

where job_type is the numeral that represents the BMC BladeLogic

job type and job_path is the location of the job in BMC BladeLogic, for example 4=/Utility/putty. NNNN is a number from 1000 to

1999. The first property must start with 1000 and increment in

numerical order for each additional property.

1 — AuditJob 2 — BatchJob 3 — ComplianceJob 4 — DeployJob 5 — FileDeployJob 6 — NSHScriptJob 7 — PatchAnalysisJob 8 — SnapshotJob

(Optional) Specifies an HP Server Automation policy to be applied to all machines provisioned from the blueprint. NNNN is a number from

1000 to 1999. The first property must start with 1000 and increment in

numerical order for each additional property.

A list of vRealize Automation custom properties that begin with the letter X.

Table 1‑46. Custom Properties X Table

Property Description

Xen.Platform.Viridian

For virtual provisioning, set to False when you provision Windows

virtual machines on a XenServer host or pool. The default is True. This

property is not used in physical provisioning.

Using the Property Dictionary

You can use the property dictionary to define new custom property definitions and property groups.

You define a property to support a specific data type and a display control style within that data type. You

can also create reusable property groups to simplify adding multiple properties.

Using Property Deﬁnitions

Many custom properties are supplied with vRealize Automation. You can also define new properties to

create unique custom properties and provide greater control for provisioning machines.

When you add a property to a blueprint or reservation, you can determine if a user must be prompted for

a property value and if the property value must be encrypted.

You can specify how a property is rendered, for example if should display as a checkbox or as a drop-

down menu with values obtained from a custom vRealize Orchestrator workflow.

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Custom Properties Reference

You can also use properties to control how your custom workflows function. For information about using vRealize Automation Designer to define and work with custom workflows, see Life Cycle Extensibility.

Best Practices for Naming Property Deﬁnitions

To avoid naming conflicts with supplied vRealize Automation custom properties, use a standard and

meaningful prefix for all property names that you create. Use a prefix such as a company or feature name

followed by a dot for all new property names. VMware reserves all property names that do not contain a

dot (.). Property names that do not follow this recommendation may conflict with vRealize Automation

custom properties. In that event, the vRealize Automation custom property takes precedence over

property definitions that you create.

General Procedures

The following steps describe the general procedure for creating and using new property definitions:

1 Create a new property definition and associate it with a data type that allows for a specific type of

content, such as boolean or integer content. Use a standard naming convention for the new property name such as my_grouping_prefix.my_property_name.

2 Associate a property definition with a display type, such as a check box or drop-down menu.

Available display types are derived from the selected data type.

3 Add the property to a blueprint either individually or as part of a property group.

Add the property to a blueprint and specify if the property value must be encrypted.

Add the property to a blueprint and specify if the user should be prompted to specify a property value.

4 As a machine requestor, specify required values as prompted.

Using vRealize Orchestrator Script Actions

You can populate the property value in a drop-down menu by using vRealize Orchestrator script actions.

Using vRealize Orchestrator script actions also enables you to populate a drop-down menu value based

on the values specified for another property.

You can use the vra content list --type property-definition vRealize CloudClient command to

list all property definitions in the current vRealize Automation instance tenant. You can also use the vra

content list --type property-group vRealize CloudClient command to list all property groups.

For a tutorial on creating dynamic property definitions to filter the options that are available to users, see

the How to use dynamic property definitions blog post.

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VMware vRealize Automation - 7.4 User’s Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Custom Properties Reference

Using Custom Properties

Creating and Adding Custom Properties and Property Groups

Using Properties in Machine Provisioning

Understanding Custom Properties Precedence

Custom Property Types

Custom Properties Grouped by Function

Custom Properties for Deployments

Custom Properties for Naming and Analyzing Deployments

Custom Properties for OpenStack Endpoints

Custom Properties for Clone Blueprints

Custom Properties for Linked Clone Blueprints

Custom Properties for FlexClone Blueprints

Custom Properties for Linux Kickstart Blueprints

Custom Properties for SCCM Blueprints

Custom Properties for WIM Blueprints

Custom Properties for vCloud Air and vCloud Director Blueprints

Custom Properties for Networking and Security

Custom Properties and Property Groups for Containers

Custom Properties for PXE Provisioning

Custom Properties for OVF Import

Custom Properties for vRealize Automation Guest Agent

Custom Properties for HP Server Automation Integration

Custom Properties Grouped by Name

Custom Properties Underscore (_)

Custom Properties A

Custom Properties B

Custom Properties C

Custom Properties E

Custom Properties H

Custom Properties I

Custom Properties L

Custom Properties M

Custom Properties N

Custom Properties O

Custom Properties P

Custom Properties R

Custom Properties S

Custom Properties V

Custom Properties X

Using the Property Dictionary