Figured out that Ovirt doesn't allow for virsh to edit XML files and have them be persistent through reboots. I needed to edit the SMBIOS settings in an XML of a VM. Once the VM is off the XML is gone. VDSM apparently builds the XML's out on boot up. To get this working this has to be done with VDSM hooks and that only took me 8 hours to figure out and sort out. :) If it helps I had to do the following on the engine: engine-config -s "UserDefinedVMProperties=smbios=.*" systemctl restart ovirt-engine.service KVM hosts I did this: yum -y localinstall https://buildlogs.centos.org/centos/7/virt/x86_64/ovirt-4.2/vdsm-hook-smb... Refresh the Capabilities in the UI for the host in question. I could then build out a VM and set the Custom Properties for smbios to this: {'product': 'KVM'} https://www.ovirt.org/documentation/admin-guide/appe-VDSM_and_Hooks.html https://www.ovirt.org/develop/developer-guide/vdsm/hook/smbios.html https://www.ovirt.org/develop/developer-guide/vdsm/hooks.html