Browse Month

August 2020

Properly cleaning up VCF downloads\bundles

With all the recent releases for VCF i noticed that my file system was getting full and once the updates are complete i wanted to reclaim all that used space.

The first step was to identify the Bundle ID. We can find this by going to the bundle itself and checking out the details by clicking on View Details

For example this specific Bundle ID is ee194251-9fe4-4729-9c29-ca5172acffc6

At this point i had to log in to the sddc manager and issue the following command:

/opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/bin/bundle_cleanup.py ee194251-9fe4-4729-9c29-ca5172acffc6

We can also specify multiple bundle IDs:

/opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/bin/bundle_cleanup.py 168ee409-d2b7-40e5-9d77-1dc3cec75e07 1f44ba0a-bf48-493e-a92b-bd791a201c12

I hope this helps

Upgrading VCF 4.0.1 to 4.0.1.1

This VMware Cloud Foundation Upgrade 4.0.1.0 to 4.0.1.1 contains critical bugs and security fixes. For more information, see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Foundation/4.0.1/rn/VMware-Cloud-Foundation-401-Release-Notes.html#4.0.1.1-Release For VCF on VxRail see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Cloud-Foundation/4.0.1/rn/vmware-cloud-foundation-on-dell-emc-vxrail-19-release-notes.html#Patch%20Releases

If you dont see any updates you can follow the first couple of steps in my other post here: http://13.90.130.7/2020/07/16/upgrading-vcf-4-0-to-vcf-4-0-1/

Once i logged on to my SDDC Manager i was able to see that na update is already available for me to download:

All i had to do was click on my management domain SDDC-MGT and then go to the Update\Patches tab

After reviewing the update notes click on Download now. The download will start and it will take some time to get there as it is about 11 GB. I took this time to check the environment to make sure everything was ready for the update

Once the download is complete click on Update Now

Once the upgrade starts we will get redirected to the update status page:

My update went thorough without a hitch and finished in 35 minutes. All i had to is click finish

Next is updating vCenter to 7.0.0c. Click on download now under Inventory -> Workload Domains -> Management domain -> Updates/Patches

Once the download is complete click on Update Now. This will initiate a task to perform the necessary steps to get the vCenter server upgraded to 7.0.0.c

Dont forget to follow the same steps for the workload domain if you have one

vCenter update from the command line

Ive ran recently in to an issue where i couldnt perform an update from the admin UI, in order to get up and running i executed the following from a ssh shell. I was luky enough to find the documentation here

/usr/lib/applmgmt/support/scripts/software-packages.py install --url

Some of the additional options that could be used

software-packages stage --url
software-packages install --staged

I like to perform the update from the command line because it gives me additional information that i might not be able to see in the UI

Typically the patching requires a reboot and the installation can be completed by executing the following:

shutdown reboot -r "patch reboot"

vCenter Appliance Update installation is in progress

I recently ran in to an issue where the vCenter server appliance update timed out. Rebooting the vCenter server brought the server back up but i was unable to log in to the administration section due to an Update installation in progress error

Doing some research i found that there is a file that holds this information fount at /etc/applmgmt/appliance/software_update_state.conf At this point all i had to do was edit the file using vi

vi /etc/applmgmt/appliance/software_update_state.conf

When opening the file i noticed that the state was INSTALL_IN_PROGRESS

Tge version was also different from what the console was showing

So i updated the file to reflect the actual version of the appliance. The end result looked like this:

Upgrading ESXi via command line

I recently ran in to a problem where i couldn’t update my esx server from the UI so i wanted to to it from the command line. After doing some research this is the way i was able to do it:

Step 1 was to open the firewall by running:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

Step 2 was to list the profiles available:

esxcli software sources profile list -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml | grep -i ESXi-7

or if i already have a bundle downloaded available:

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore/downloaded.zip | grep -i ESXi-7

Step 3 was to pick one of the releases and apply the update

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-7.0b-16324942-standard  -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

or from the local zip file

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-7.0b-16324942-standard  -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore/downloaded.zip

Step 4 dont forget to close the firewall

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r httpClient

Install/Upgrade ESXi 7.0 on unsupported hardware.

As i was installing\upgrading my lab environment to ESXi 7.0 i received an error that the CPU was unsupported. As per the release notes vSphere 7.0 release notes my CPU is no longer on the compatibility list.

Since this is a lab environment i wanted to continue using my current hardware. It goes without saying that this method should not be used in a production environment.

To allow the legacy CPU all i had to do is boot up from the ISO, on the boot Menu i pressed TAB or Shift + O and added allowLegacyCPU=True option as seen in the screenshot below