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vRealize Lifeycycle Manager (vRSLCM) enable product dowloads

In order to enable product downloads in lifecycle manager we need to go to Lifecycle Operations

Settings -> My vmware

Add my vmware account. Make sure the account added has a proper entitlement to perform downloads and patches.

With the releases of 8.x and above we now have a password vault that we need to add the passwords to. When presented with the add my VMware Account Detail screen press on Click here to add a new password

Type in the details for your password and press add

Click on Select Credential and add the new password you created, add the username, click validate and then add

After the process is complete we can go back to settings and click on Binary Mapping

This will take us to the Product Binary page where we can click on Add Binaries

We can add binaries from a local source, NFS, My VMware or Windows ISO. In this scenario we can download the binaries directly from My VMware. Click on my VMware and click discover

In my case i want to download vRealize Automation and VMware Identity Manager. So i selected th downloads as install type and clicked on add

We are now presented with a link where we can track the status of the download. Click on Click here to check the status request

In my case i was taken to Requests page and i can now see that there are 2 tasks In Progress for binary download

I can get more details by clicking on the In Progress link

After a little while my downloads were complete

X-Region Application Virtual Network is not created error

While trying to deploy vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager in VCF 4, i was prompted by an error X-Region Application Virtual Network is not created

After doing some research i found out that the error is due to AVN not getting deployed part of the initial deployment. I remembered that VCF 4 doesnt actually require it so after i did some research i was able to find a kb article that allowed me to continue with my install. KB 78608

All i had to do is log in to my sddc manager with my root credentials and execute the following commands:

cd /home/vcf
echo "feature.vcf.avn.greenfield=false" >> feature.properties
chown vcf:vcf feature.properties
chmod 644 feature.properties
/opt/vmware/vcf/operationsmanager/scripts/cli/sddcmanager_restart_services.sh

Once that was complete i was able to start the deployment

Deploying the vRealize suite using VCF 4.0

The official documentation for deploying the vRealize suite can be found here

First step is to download the bundle by going to sddc-manager -> Repository -> Bundle management. Look for VMware Software Install Bundle – vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager 8.1.0-16256499

After the download is complete we can go to Administration -> vRealize Suite and a deploy button should be available. If the deploy button is not available due to X-Region Application Virtual Network is not created error please follow the instructions found here:

Verify the Prerequisites and click on begin

Fill up the network settings and click next

Fill up the Virtual Appliance Settings:

Review the summary and click Finish

We can follow the progress by click on the Task on the bottom of the screen

This allows me to see the subtasks that are running

Once the deployment is complete we can open the vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager by clicking on the link

Downloading specific VCF bundles

I wanted to reuse my VCF downloaded bundles on another SDDC Manager system so that i wont have to download it from internet again. Ive found an easy guide here in the VMware documentation. My goal was to download the specific bundle once and upload it on other SDDC Managers.

The first command from SDDC manager was to list the bundles. The lcm bundle transfer utility can be found in /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools/bin

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util -du ${depotUser} -l -p ${product_version}

I replaced the ${depotUser} with my vmware email address and ${product_version} with the version of the VCF product i wanted to install in my case 4.0.1.1. I was greeted with a list of bundle IDs and the specific component that it was for:

Enter Myvmware user password:
Validating the depot user credentials...

Bundle         Product  Bundle Size  Components
               Version  (in MB)
bundle-27565   4.0.1.1  10092.0 MB   SDDC_MANAGER_VCF-4.0.1.1-16660200
bundle-27336   4.0.1.1  5220.0 MB   VCENTER-7.0.0.10600-16620007-PATCH
bundle-27337   4.0.1.1  7613.0 MB   VCENTER-7.0.0.10600-16620007-INSTALL

In my case i need the installer. To download a specific bundle we run

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --outputDirectory ${absolute-path-output-dir} --depotUser ${depotUser} -b ${bundle_name}

in my case it was:

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --outputDirectory /some/temporary/location --depotUser [email protected] -b bundle-27565

This allowed me to grab the download from /some/temporary/path and save it/upload it on my other SDDC Managers that were missing it.

Finally before the patch can be used in SDDC Manager we need to upload it to the repo. Please note that once we issue the upload command the download gets deleted, so make sure you save the download ahead of time

./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --upload --bundleDirectory /some/temporary/path -b bundle-27565

Once the upload was complete i was able to see it in SDDC Manager as an package that i can apply.

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