Default or Clone uefi_boot=True setting so as not to have to run command for each VM?

  • 14 February 2017
  • 7 replies
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Is there a way to set uefi_boot=True as the default, replacing BIOS? Or how can I create a VM clone or template that has that set so that when I create or have a user through SSP create a new VM that is already configured as UEFI instead of BIOS?

Thanks

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7 replies

Userlevel 6
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hey BG_selfcloud - Thanks for reaching out. Sorry for the slow response, catching up on some old threads now and noticed no one responded here.

What requirement is driving you to want to UEFI boot everything?

In general, most people only UEFI boot for VM's that were previously EFI enabled prior to migration, when migrating from another platform, such as Gen2 hyper-V VM's, or EFI enabled VMware VM's.
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Windows 10. UEFI is going to be the default on our physical devices and our imaging toolset. The EUC team is looking to have that be the standard. Part of it is for testing to ensure imaging functions as well as other tools for supporting rollout via DHCP policies. Good thing I've found out since posting this is that with systems that Citrix Xendesktop MCS spins up UEFI is enabled, so no issues there. But creating a clone of a system that had UEFI enabled via the Prism GUI doesn't do that, its interesting. Need to review the api/powershell for requesting/building a new VM so it sets it to UEFI so that other engineers don't need to manually ssh into a CVM to run the acli command...
Userlevel 6
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ok, so I just tested this on a AOS 5.0.1 based CE environment (what I've got running at home right now), and creating a VM, marking it as uefi boot, then cloning it carried uefi boot forward, so that is good.

Are you not seeing that same clone behavior?

As for making it default, pinging engineering now, I'll see what they say.

As for API request, how are you requesting and provisioning VM's now? SSP? or some other system like ServiceNow? I know you mentioned SSP, but your API / posh comment got me thinking
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Let me give it a few more goes and I'll follow up and give some more detail on the thoughts around scripting it. We do have ServiceNow but it's not being used for user services in the IT spaces just yet, so haven't delved into integration there yet. SSP is something I want to make availalble to this subset of users, so if I can either allow clone or the Image to be stored/easy way of setting UEFI at VM creation without sharing CVM credentials then Im set.
Userlevel 6
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Ok, understood. If you create the base image with UEFI, and then are cloing it out, UEFI setting should follow it, so it should be fine, but dig in and let me know where you see any gaps.

As for making it default, pinging engineering now, I'll see what they say.

 

What did they say? Can it be set as the default for new VMs?

Userlevel 2
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Even if our VM templates and Disk images are UEFI-enabled, when provisioning a VM via the Self-Service Prism Central UI, the user is prompted to select a Boot Configuration with options listed as:

  • Legacy BIOS
  • UEFI

We don’t want our users to have to select UEFI for every VM. I was told that we cannot change the default selection to UEFI and that does not provide a good UX.