When migrating from vRA 6.2 to 7.x property groups are copied, but are converted to global visibility. It’s great that everything copies over, but the property group conversion causes an export problem. Cloudclient should be able to read/export global property groups soon. Someone else had the same issue. In my use case I needed to temporarily export the property groups and delete them due to an error in a EHC workflow.  I had to open a  ticket with VMware vRA Engineering for this process. (Thanks guys)

On with the show, here’s how to convert property group visibility manually. I’ll work on automating the process when time allows.

Requires Linux or MAC machine with access to vRA appliance.

1. Obtain auth token – login as a user with permission to create/manage property groups:

– POST to https://$VA/identity/api/tokens
– curl syntax:

curl –insecure -H “Accept: application/json” -H ‘Content-Type: application/json’ –data ‘{“username”:”user@domain”,”password”:”password”,”tenant”:”tenant_name”}’ https://<vra_url>/identity/api/tokens

Example:

dev-1 $ curl –insecure -H “Accept: application/json” -H ‘Content-Type: application/json’ –data ‘{“username”:”fritz@coke.sqa-horizon.local”,”password”:”Password1!”,”tenant”:”rivet”}’ https://$VA/identity/api/tokens {“expires”:”2018-07-24T05:49:43.000Z”,”id”:”MTUzMjM4MjU4MzY2MjoxNGY4ZjcxMjZhOThhYjViNTI1YTp0ZW5hbnQ6cWV1c2VybmFtZTpmcml0ekBjb2tlLnNxYS1ob3Jpem9uLmxvY2FsZXhwaXJhdGlvbjoxNTMyNDExMzgzMDAwOjViY2JkOTBhYzI4YWRiYjMyMmY5NjUyZmY1NDIyODlhNDhjYzkxYjI0M2QzMThjN2E5MDMyY2JhMzAwZWEwM2I0MzhmZTFmNDM4ZGQ4ZjhmZTM5M2EyZTU3YjgzYTViZDAyYzdhOWJlZWQ0MmRkNWRlNjMxOGY4OTJmODY3″,”tenant”:”rivet”}

2. For convenience, assign auth token value to shell environment variable:

dev-1 $ export TOKEN=”MTUzMjM4MjU4MzY2MjoxNGY4ZjcxMjZhOThhYjViNTI1YTp0ZW5hbnQ6cWV1c2VybmFtZTpmcml0ekBjb2tlLnNxYS1ob3Jpem9uLmxvY2FsZXhwaXJhdGlvbjoxNTMyNDExMzgzMDAwOjViY2JkOTBhYzI4YWRiYjMyMmY5NjUyZmY1NDIyODlhNDhjYzkxYjI0M2QzMThjN2E5MDMyY2JhMzAwZWEwM2I0MzhmZTFmNDM4ZGQ4ZjhmZTM5M2EyZTU3YjgzYTViZDAyYzdhOWJlZWQ0MmRkNWRlNjMxOGY4OTJmODY3″

3. Retrieve JSON definition for desired global property group:

– GET from https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups/<property-group-id&gt;
– curl syntax (note Authorization header with auth token from steps 1 and 2):
 
 
curl –insecure -H “Content-Type: application/json” -H “Accept: application/json” -H “Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN” https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups/<property-group-id&gt;

Example:

dev-1 $ curl –insecure -H “Content-Type: application/json” -H “Accept: application/json” -H “Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN” https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups/Test
{“id”:”Test”,”label”:”Test”,”description”:”All tenants”,”properties”:{“one”:{“facets”:{“visibility”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”encrypted”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”mandatory”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”defaultValue”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”string”,”value”:”two”}}}}},”tenantId“:null,”createdDate”:”2018-07-23T20:55:48.908Z”,”lastUpdated”:”2018-07-23T20:55:48.908Z”,”version”:0}

4. Copy JSON returned in step 3 and edit: set the tenantId:

– Change: “tenantId“:null to “tenantId“:”<desired-tenant>“
 
Optional: change the description field as/if desired.

5. From the vRA UI, delete the property group for which you obtained the JSON definition in step 3.

Example:

Login to vRA UI and delete property group “Test”.

6. From the command line, create a new property group from the edited JSON at step 4.

– POST to https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups
– curl syntax (note Authorization header with auth token from steps 1 and 2):
 
 
curl –insecure -H “Content-Type: application/json” -H “Accept: application/json” -H “Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN” –data ‘<edited-JSON-from-step-4>’ https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups

Example:

dev-1 $ curl –insecure -H “Accept: application/json” -H “Content-Type: application/json” -H “Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN” –data ‘{“id”:”Test”,”label”:”Test”,“description”:”New Test”,”properties”:{“one”:{“facets”:{“visibility”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”encrypted”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”mandatory”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”boolean”,”value”:false}},”defaultValue”:{“type”:”constant”,”value”:{“type”:”string”,”value”:”two”}}}}},“tenantId”:”rivet”,”createdDate”:”2018-07-23T20:55:48.908Z”,”lastUpdated”:”2018-07-23T20:55:48.908Z”,”version”:0}’ https://$VA/properties-service/api/propertygroups

7. Repeat steps 3 – 6 until all property groups have been redefined.