New detailed GuestOS data in vSphere 8.0 Update 2

Your workloads are constantly changing both from an application standpoint but also the underlying guest operating system (GuestOS) including patches and upgrades. While many organizations have a change management database (CMDB), it can still be a challenge to true up that information from when the workload was first deployed to what it is currently running.

Back in 2019, VMware enhanced VMware Tools to make it easier to identify applications and processes that was running within a VM and this also provided a programmatic way for retrieving this inventory information which could then be fed back into their CMDB.

Applications are not the only things that change inside of a VM, the GuestOS probably receives the most updates (patches/upgrades) and being able to accurately inventory this information without relying on an in-guest agent is still a challenge for many.

In vSphere 8.0 Update 2, we have enhanced the available GuestOS data using VMware Tools and we have also made it easier to inventory and collect this information even when the VM has been powered off.

A new guestDetailedData vSphere API property has been introduced, which can contain the following 10 fields, which are populated by VMware Tools:

As you can see, you will need to have at least VMware Tools 11.2.0 or 12.2.0 to see all of these fields. The API property can be retrieved while the VM is powered on and depending on the GuestOS, all or a subset of these fields will be available. When a VM is powered off, VMware Tools is no longer running and the property would be empty or null as expected.

The developers wanted to make it easier for users to retrieve this information, especially if it has not changed from the last time it was collected and make this persistent so that you can quickly inventory your VMs even if it is powered off. As mentioned in the vSphere API documentation, the last known values are persisted and is available when the VM is powered off. This information is stored in the VM Advanced Setting called guestinfo.detailed.data and will contain the last known values when the VM was running.

To make it even easier for our users to consume this new vSphere API, I have created the following PowerCLI snippet which will retrieve only this property for all VMs and store that into custom object which you can then process further:

$vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name,Config.extraConfig

$results = @()
foreach ($vm in $vms) {
    $detailedData = ($vm.Config.ExtraConfig | where {$_.key -eq 'guestInfo.detailed.data'}).Value
    # Split the pairs
    $keyValuePairs = $detailedData -split "(?<=') " -replace "'", ""

    # Clear variables
    $architecture = $bitness = $distroName = $buildNumber = $cpeString = $distroAddlVersion = $distroVersion = $familyName = $kernelVersion = $prettyName = $null

    # Loop through key-value pairs
    foreach ($pair in $keyValuePairs) {
        $key, $value = $pair -split '=', 2

        if ($key -eq "architecture") { $architecture = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "bitness") { $bitness = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "buildNumber") { $buildNumber = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "cpeString") { $cpeString = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "distroAddlVersion") { $distroAddlVersion = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "distroName") { $distroName = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "distroVersion") { $distroVersion = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "familyName") { $familyName = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "kernelVersion") { $kernelVersion = $value }
        elseif ($key -eq "prettyName") { $prettyName = $value }
    }

    $tmp = [pscustomobject] [ordered]@{
        Name = $vm.Name;
        Architecture = $architecture;
        Bitness = $bitness;
        BuildNumber = $buildNumber;
        CPEString = $cpeString;
        DistroName = $distroAddlVersion;
        DistroVersion = $distroName;
        DistroAddlVersion = $distroVersion;
        FamilyName = $familyName;
        KernelVersion = $kernelVersion;
        PrettyName = $prettyName;
    }
    $results+=$tmp
}

$results

Here is an example of what the output might look like: