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Quick Tip - Deploy OVF/OVA with Basic Authentication Endpoint

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As part of rebuilding my VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) 9.0.1 environment, a refresh of my VCF (Offline) Software Depot was needed to include the latest 9.0.1 binaries including various OVF/OVAs like Data Services Manager (DSM).

My VCF Software Depot has been configured with basic authentication, which is a requirement for the VCF Installer. This meant before I can import the DSM OVA into vCenter Server, I typically would need to download a local copy of the OVA, which got me thinking about this workflow ...

Can an OVF/OVA be deployed directly from a web server that requires basic authentication? šŸ¤”

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Quick Tip - Auditing configured Per-VM EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility)Ā 

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A request came in last week to help automate the inventory of vSphere Virtual Machines (VMs) that have been configured with the Per-VM EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) capability.


It is important to understand that if a VM is not configured with Per-VM EVC, it will automatically inherit the configured EVC-mode from the vSphere Cluster. While there are several vSphere API properties that will give you information about the EVC details for a VM, the quickest way to check whether a VM has Per-VM EVC configured is by looking at the FeatureMask property.

Here is a quick PowerCLI snippet that demonstrates the use of this vSphere API:

$vms = Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Property Name, Runtime

foreach ($vm in $vms) {
    if($vm.Runtime.FeatureMask -ne $null -and $vm.name -notmatch "vCLS-") {
        Write-Host "Per-VM EVC Enabled for $(${vm}.name)"
    }
}

Here is an example output when running this script and you can adjust the output based on your needs including exporting it to CSV list/etc.

Quick Tip - Validating Broadcom Download TokenĀ 

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As of last month, customers must generate a new download token from the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP) for in-product downloads of VMware software binaries (e.g. updates, security patches using SDDC Manager, vCenter Server, ESXi, etc.). The Broadcom download token must then be appended after the new product download base URI (e.g. https://dl.broadcom.com/TOKEN/...) and this will ensure you will be able to continue to download updates directly or indirectly (via network proxy) from within the products.

UPDATE (05/02/2025) - A new Broadcom KB (395322) has also just been published with additional endpoints for troubleshooting download tokens.

Note: For customers that have setup or are using an offline method to retrieve updates, there are no changes in your workflow, this is only for those pulling software update directly from Broadcom.

A Broadcom download token is scoped to a SiteID and depending on your organization you may have one or more SiteIDs and users can generate a unique download token for each SiteID. It is important to understand that a download token itself does not contain an expiration, while you can revoke an existing token, its validity is based on whether a given SiteID has an active entitlement for the particular VMware SKU that you are attempting to download.

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