Why NSX Name Fields Should Be Case-Insensitive

Why NSX Name Fields Should Be Case-Insensitive

Be Careful Naming Security Groups

Creating Security Groups

The example below is why NSX name fields should be case-insensitive. When creating security groups with the names: “SG-01”, “Sg-01”, “sG-01”, and “sg-01” one might think this won’t be allowed as they’re the same name. Actually, NSX allows this due to the fact that the name field is case-sensitive resulting in four security groups created as shown in Figure-1:

A winking emoji with a white cross and open mouth is next to four file icons labeled differently with variations of "SG-01".

Figure-1

Again, the above example shows why NSX name fields should be case-insensitive. This would prevent such behavior, for example, security group “SG-01” already exists and when attempting to create another security group with the name “sg-01” would fail with a message similar to “Another object with the same name already exists in the current scope: Global”.

This issue also occurs in the following objects:

  • Security Groups

  • Security Policies

  • Custom Services

  • IP Sets

  • MAC Sets

  • Service Groups

  • IP Pools

  • Logical Switches

  • Creating NSX Edges

Surprisingly, Security Tags prevents the above problem, as shown in Figure-2:

Screenshot of a VMware vSphere Web Client interface showing a list of security tags. A warning message indicates a name conflict: "Another object with the same name: st-01 already exists in the current scope: Global." An emoji with a smiling face is added for emphasis.

Figure-2

Granted, this issue “could” be resolved with standardized naming schemes, however, simply forgetting to capitalize or not capitalize a letter could accidentally create an unintended object. When attempting to filter for “SG-01” in the GUI or in PowerNSX all four security groups are returned, as seen in Figure-3 which is not what the Emoji wants.

Luckily with PowerNSX, we can leverage PowerShell’s -cmatch comparison operator to help narrow down our selection as shown in Figure-4. That’s going to wrap up this post.

A side-by-side comparison of a GUI and PowerNSX command results showing different cases of "SG-01". The GUI search highlights the correct "SG-01" while PowerNSX lists several variations, with only "SG-01" being correct. A thought bubble mentions "Only want SG-01".

Figure-3

Command prompt displaying details of a security group named "SG-01" with a smiling emoji and arrow pointing to the name filter.

Figure-4

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