CSCvh62025 - Guest OS type yields an error when deploying OVA

Vaijanath Sonvane · ‎01-14-2020

Symptoms

A warning in ESXi 6.5 appears: "The configured guest OS (CentOS 4/5 or later (64-bit)) for this virtual machine does not match the guest that is currently running (CentOS 7 (64-bit)). You should specify the correct guest OS to allow for guest-specific optimizations."

Condition

You are installing the OVA into a VMware ESXi 6.5 (or probably 6.x) hypervisor. Once you start the OVA (or the VM after the OVA is installed), this warning will appear in the display of all of the VM's on the hypervisor. It will then be visible in the VM detail display as well. Installations in VMware ESXi 5.x or 4.x to not appear to show this problem.

Solution

The solution or workaround under this bug details mentions that "No workaround is possible in the versions of ESXi we have tested, since ESXi 6.5 does not provide a way to change the Guest OS version to CentOS 7. However, no workaround is required, since this warning does not impact the operation of the product in any way."

Well, it is possible to change the Guest OS version to CentOS 7 to get rid of the warning message. Here are the steps:

(Note: Make sure to take the backup of your system. The following activities must be performed during maintenance window)

1. Perform graceful shutdown of the Virtual Machine:

2. Login to VMware ESXi console and verify that the Virtual Machine is Powered Off.

3. Click Edit Virtual Machine

4. Select VM Options >> Guest OS Version and Choose CentOS 7 (64-bit)

5. Power ON the Virtual Machine.

The Virtual Machine will display Guest OS Version as CentOS 7 (64-bit) and the error message will disappear.