Virtual Machine Provisioning privileges control activities related to deploying and customizing virtual machines.

You can set this privilege at different levels in the hierarchy. For example, if you set a privilege at the folder level, you can propagate the privilege to one or more objects within the folder. The object listed in the Required On column must have the privilege set, either directly or inherited.

Table 1. Virtual Machine Provisioning Privileges
Privilege Name in the vSphere Client Description Required On Privilege Name in the API
  • Provisioning
    • Allow disk access

Allows opening a disk on a virtual machine for random read and write access. Used mostly for remote disk mounting.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomAccess
  • Provisioning
    • Allow file access

Allows operations on files associated with a virtual machine, including vmx, disks, logs, and nvram.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.FileRandomAccess
  • Provisioning
    • Allow read-only disk access

Allows opening a disk on a virtual machine for random read access. Used mostly for remote disk mounting.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DiskRandomRead
  • Provisioning
    • Allow virtual machine download

Allows read operations on files associated with a virtual machine, including vmx, disks, logs, and nvram.

Root host or vCenter Server

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.GetVmFiles
  • Provisioning
    • Allow virtual machine files upload

Allows write operations on files associated with a virtual machine, including vmx, disks, logs, and nvram.

Root host or vCenter Server

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.PutVmFiles
  • Provisioning
    • Clone template

Allows cloning of a template.

Templates

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.CloneTemplate
  • Provisioning
    • Clone virtual machine

Allows cloning of an existing virtual machine and allocation of resources.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Clone
  • Provisioning
    • Create template from virtual machine

Allows creation of a new template from a virtual machine.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.CreateTemplateFromVM
  • Provisioning
    • Customize guest

Allows customization of a virtual machine’s guest operating system without moving the virtual machine.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.Customize
  • Provisioning
    • Deploy template

Allows deployment of a virtual machine from a template.

Templates

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.DeployTemplate
  • Provisioning
    • Mark as template

Allows marking an existing powered off virtual machine as a template.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsTemplate
  • Provisioning
    • Mark as virtual machine

Allows marking an existing template as a virtual machine.

Templates

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.MarkAsVM
  • Provisioning
    • Modify customization specification

Allows creation, modification, or deletion of customization specifications.

Root vCenter Server

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.ModifyCustSpecs
  • Provisioning
    • Promote disks

Allows promote operations on a virtual machine's disks.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.PromoteDisks
  • Provisioning
    • Read customization specifications

Allows reading a customization specification.

Virtual machines

VirtualMachine.Provisioning.ReadCustSpecs