topic Re: VME Trial doesn't include everything? in HPE Morpheus VM Essentials

VME Trial doesn't include everything?

nate8942 — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:32:26 GMT

Hello,

New to VME, been using VMware since 1999, hoping/expecting to deploy VME at my org soon.. I have zero experience with any hypervisor other than VMware. I have ~30 years of Linux experience though.

The way I currently provision VMs is I use a tool called "govc" in VMware and populate custom metadata in the VM, so when it is built, scripts kick off and read that metadata to know what settings to set whether it is networking info, hostname, and custom file system configurations.

For example, when building a VM with a custom ZFS configuration the VM queries some options and the script interpets the results on the details around the config:

# vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.sd.zfs.install"
1
# vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.sd.zfs.zpool.size"
10
# vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.sd.zfs.zpool.options"
-o autotrim=on
# vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.sd.zfs.fs.names"
myzfsname
# vmtoolsd --cmd "info-get guestinfo.sd.zfs.zpool.name"
HOSTNAME

I am sure there is a way to store custom metadata in KVM(not sure how yet), though not sure how to retrieve it from the guest..

VME seems to want to use cloud-init for Ubuntu. While I use Ubuntu, I've never used cloud-init, unsure if it can do what I need it to do (main thing is storing config values for the VMs to retrieve as well as set static network configs). My current processes I build a very basic template, with just a few minor changes to enable /etc/rc.local, then when the new VM powers up all it does is download a script and execute it. Then I can make whatever changes I need to the script without having to touch the template again. Eventually towards the end of provisioning Chef/Cinc kicks off to configure the system in the role that is defined for it(also set in VM metadata).

But anyway, the main point of this post is that I tried what I think I may need to do using the morpheus CLI to set a custom metadata setting in an instance but got an error back saying my license doesn't cover that feature

$ morpheus instances setenv ubuntu24-vmetemplate-v1 MyIP 10.30.16.121 -r tmpvmemanage-01
Error Communicating with the remote appliance. 403 Forbidden
Feature Not Included for the Applied License

I am using a blank/trial license, is there another more feature complete trial license?

thanks

Re: VME Trial doesn't include everything?

Arnout_Verbeken — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:52:02 GMT

Cloud-init is the way to go.

See this post: https://community.hpe.com/t5/hpe-morpheus-vm-essentials/how-to-define-cloud-init-metadata-to-provision-specific-static/m-p/7262965/highlight/true#M1885

If this is not what you are looking for, let us know.

Re: VME Trial doesn't include everything?

lsantiagos01 — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 12:56:02 GMT

Hi,

This does not look like a bug. The error is clear:

403 Forbidden – Feature Not Included for the Applied License

In practice, this means the `instances setenv` command is blocked by the license currently applied to the appliance. So the issue is not the CLI syntax and not a provisioning failure.

For guest customization, the documented path in VM Essentials is to use Cloud-Init for Linux, and Cloudbase-Init where applicable.

So, in simple terms:
- yes, the trial is limited
- this feature is not included in the license you are using
- I did not find documentation showing a public trial with every feature enabled

If your goal is guest customization, the best path is to test cloud-init / cloudbase-init first.

If you specifically need `setenv` or custom metadata features, then HPE or your partner needs to confirm which license includes that.

Re: VME Trial doesn't include everything?

Arnout_Verbeken — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 13:23:34 GMT

To be clear: the VM Essentials trial is NOT limited in features for VM Essentials. Everything you can do with a licensed VM Essentials is possible with the trial.

VM Essentials as such is "limited" in comparison with the full-featured Morpheus Enterprise. The error you see means that VM Essentials is not licensed to use that specific API call. Those calls are only supported in the Morpheus Enterprise.
There is only a limited set of API calls supported in VM Essentials.

Re: VME Trial doesn't include everything?

nate8942 — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:31:46 GMT

thanks for the replies!

I have indeed given up on this path and gone cloud-init instead, that doesn't work quite the way I hoped it would but I managed to get it working enough for my needs.