VMware : How to identifying VMs deployed from OVA/OVF in vCenter

Happy New Year!

Managing large VMware environments can be challenging, especially when dealing with thousands of VMs. One critical task for VMware administrators is identifying which VMs were deployed using OVA or OVF packages and this can be in relation of various subjects:

Compliance and Licensing: Some OVA appliances come with specific licensing terms. Identifying them ensures compliance.

Security: Imported VMs from OVAs/OVFs can introduce vulnerabilities. Tracking these VMs helps manage security risks.

Resource Management: OVA/OVF appliances often have pre-configured resource allocations. Identifying them helps optimize performance and resource distribution.

Migration project: Identify all VMs deployed from OVA/OVF before a migration project to verify the compatibility

VMs deployed via OVAs/OVFs typically leave traces in the Annotations field. However, in many environments, VMs may lack annotations, or deployment metadata may not persist after import.

Using the vSphere UI, you can locate this information when selecting a VM under Configure->Settings->vApp Options and below is an example for a VM deployed from OVA/OVF: 

In large environments, manually identifying these deployments isn’t feasible. Fortunately, PowerCLI provides an efficient way to automate this process.

# Connect to vCenter

$vCenterServer = “<vCenterServer>”

Connect-VIServer -Server $vCenterServer

# Initialize an array to store VM details with OVF-specific advanced settings

$ovaVMs = @()

# Iterate through each VM and check for OVF-specific advanced settings

foreach ($vm in Get-VM) {

    $config = $vm.ExtensionData.Config

    $advancedSettings = $config.ExtraConfig | Where-Object {

        $_.Key -match “guestinfo.ovfEnv” -or

        $_.Key -match “ovf” -or

        $_.Key -match “imported”

    }

    if ($advancedSettings) {

        $ovaVMs += [PSCustomObject]@{

            Name           = $vm.Name

            PowerState     = $vm.PowerState

            ConfigSettings = $advancedSettings.Key

        }

    }

}

# Display results in a table format

$ovaVMs | Format-Table -AutoSize

# Export results to a CSV file

$csvPath = “C:\OVF_VM_Settings.csv”

$ovaVMs | Export-Csv -Path $csvPath -NoTypeInformation

# Disconnect from vCenter

Disconnect-VIServer -Confirm:$false

Enjoy!