vCLS Virtual Machines present in scan results

Owned by Andy Trayler
Jan 18, 2023
2 min read

Problem

  1. When scanning a target estate using a vCenter scan virtual machines are generated with a name like vCLS with optional numeric suffixes e.g. vCLS (1), vCS (2)

    1. These machines are not updated on subsequent vCenter scans

    2. These have no IP address that allow them to be added to an exclusion list

Solution/Explanation

vCLS agent virtual machines (vCLS VMs) are essentially an “appliance” or “service” VM that allows a vSphere cluster to remain functioning in the event that the vCenter Server becomes unavailable. It will maintain the health and services of that cluster. It does not appear in the standard Cluster, Hosts, and VMs view, but does appear when looking at the vSphere objects VM lists, Storage VM lists, etc. The vCLS VMs are created when hosts are added to a vSphere Cluster. Up to 3 vCLS VMs are required to run in each vSphere Cluster.

The vCLS VMs will also appear on clusters which contain only one or two hosts. These configurations will result in either one or two vCLS VMs named “vCLS (1)” and “vCLS (2)”.

The vCLS VMs are system VMs used to maintain consistency in a cluster. For this reason they can be considered as not being real VM targets and can be ignored. The following screenshot shows these VM machines will appear in the CAM UI. It should be noted that these VMs are not reported with an IP address, so it is not possible to add them to an exclusion list.

 

Within CAM, these VM targets can be deleted without affecting other components of the solution. The only proviso to this operation, is that new VM targets may be created when a vCenter scan is re-run.

 

vCLS is activated when you upgrade to vSphere 7.0 Update 3 or when you have a new vSphere 7.0 Update 3 deployment. vCLS support is upgraded as part of vCenter Server upgrade.