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vSphere Session Timeout Overview

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I periodically get questions about vSphere "session timeouts" and because there are several different session timeouts in vSphere, there is usually a back and fourth to understand which session timeout a user is specifically asking about? 🙂

Once the specific vSphere session timeout has been identified, the next series of questions are typically:

  • What is the default or current value?
  • Is it configurable?
  • If so, where and how can I change it?

To help simplify questions around this topic, I have put together this quick overview that also includes details for each specific session timeout and where to find and update the values.

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New vCenter Converter Beta

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I know many customers have been asking about the future of vCenter Converter, especially after it was removed back in February for not meeting VMware’s high software standards for security and stability. At the end of the blog post, it was hinted that a "renewed" version was being worked, however no additional details were provided.


While recovering and catching up from VMware Explore US, I received a surprised email from the vCenter Converter team that they were about to launch a beta for the new version of vCenter Converter! They asked if I could share this awesome news with the community, especially for those interested in participating and looking to influence the future production direction.

UPDATE (10/11/22) - VMware Converter 6.3 has officially GA'ed and is now generally available.

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Exploring the Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo using vSphere

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While exploring some upcoming capabilities and providing early feedback to Engineering, I came to learn about a new Cloud-init datasource called VMware GuestInfo that was recently merged into the project last August. The Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo started out as an OSS project created by Andrew Kutz of VMware and it provides an easy way for a vSphere-based VM to leverage the popular Cloud-init tool for OS initialization and configuration. 

Unlike the recent vSphere Guest OS Customization with Cloud-init feature in vSphere 7.0 Update 3, the Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo works by configuring specific guestinfo variables on a VM which are then transported into the guest operating system (GOS) using VMware Tools and is then processed by the cloud-init service that is running inside of the GOS. The nice thing about using this new Cloud-init datasource is that it is not tied to a specific release of vSphere and for those with Cloud-init experience, this is an easy way to incorporate your existing workflows. While I was somewhat familiar with Cloud-init and Linux GOS, I did not know that support for Microsoft Windows was also possible through the use of another project similiar to Cloud-Init called Cloudbase-Init.

It took me some time to figure out how to setup Cloudbase-init with Windows and I have to give a huge shoutout to Jay Vyas for pointing me over to one of his pet projects SIG Windows Development Environment that provided a clue to what the configuration file should look like. While learning about both Cloud-init Datasource for VMware GuestInfo and Cloudbase-init, I found that it was not trivial to get started and I wanted to document some concrete examples that can easily illustrate the power of this capability but also help anyone that might be interested in using this feature and how to quickly get started.

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