Starting in NSX-T Data Center 3.0, you can add a tag to multiple objects simultaneously. However, in v3.0, this feature is available only for the virtual machine object.

Procedure

  1. From your browser, log in with admin privileges to an NSX Manager at https://<nsx-manager-ip-address>.
  2. Click Inventory > Tags.
  3. Click Add Tag.
  4. Enter a tag name.
    The maximum length of the tag name is 256 characters.
  5. (Optional) Enter a tag scope.
    For example, let us say, you want to tag virtual machines based on their operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux). Create three tags, such as Windows, Linux, and Mac, and set the scope of each tag to OS.
    The maximum length of the scope is 128 characters.
  6. In Assigned To, click Set Virtual Machines.
  7. (Required) Select one or more virtual machines to which you want to assign the tag, and click Apply.

    You must assign a tag to at least one virtual machine before you can save the tag.

    Note: You can do a bulk assignment of a tag on a maximum of 1000 virtual machines at one go.
  8. Click Save.

Results

  • If the tag is assigned to many virtual machines, the assignment might take some time. When the assignment is in progress, the Last Assignment Status shows Running. After the tag is assigned successfully to all the selected virtual machines, the Last Assignment Status column changes to Successful.
  • If a partial assignment occurs, NSX-T Data Center does not roll back the tag assignment from the VMs on which the tag is applied. For example, assume that you selected 100 VMs for a bulk tag assignment, and the assignment fails for 10 VMs. The tag that is assigned on the remaining 90 VMs is not rolled back.

    In such partial assignment situations, run the following API to retrieve the status of the tag operation:

    GET /api/v1/infra/tags/tag-operations/<tag-operation-id>/status

    You can also retrieve the realized status of the tag operation with the following API:

    GET /api/v1/infra/realized-state/realized-entities?intent_path=/infra/tags/tag-operations/<operation-id>

For more details about these APIs, see the NSX-T Data Center API Guide.

What to do next

If you have a long list of tags in the inventory, you can filter or search tags to find the tags of your interest quickly. You can filter on source, scope, and tag (name of the tag). You can also sort tags in the UI. However, due to the case-sensitive nature of tags, tags are sorted only in a lexical order.

The following limitations apply to searching or filtering tags:
  • You cannot filter tags on the source and scope attributes simultaneously because both work on the scope attribute of the tag.
  • The API does not support filtering tags with special characters, such as *, &, /, \, and so on. However, you can use special characters to filter tags in the UI.