VM /ETC

Last week I was helping a client upgrade to VI 3.5 and experienced some unexpected VM reboots. Unfortunately I did not discover the reason it happened until after the upgrade. I was reading blog.scottlowe.com when I found the post ESX Server 3.0.1 Patch Needed for VC 2.5. From the post:

According to this VMware KB document, any ESX Server running version 3.0.1 should have patch ESX-7557441 installed before VirtualCenter is upgraded to version 2.5. If this patch is not installed,

it’s possible that virtual machines which are configured to automatically start or stop will unexpectedly reboot when VirtualCenter is upgraded to version 2.5. Since VirtualCenter has to be upgraded before you can start upgrading your ESX Servers, then this could definitely be an issue.

More information on why this may occur is provided in this related VMware KB article.

This may be a fairly rare situation, since (tongue in cheek) organizations always make sure that their ESX Servers are kept patched. (OK, you can stop laughing now.) Seriously, though, if you do still have servers running ESX 3.0.1 be sure to apply this patch before starting along your upgrade path.

According to VMware KB ID: 1003401 there a 2 additional patches that need to be applied to a ESX 3.0.1 host before it is managed by VC 2.5 to prevent this reboot problem:

For ESX Server 3.0.1, VirtualCenter 2.5 requires Patches ESX-1002083, ESX-1002085, and ESX-7557441, as indicated in the VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrixes at http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vi_pages/vi_pubs_35.html.

See the VMware Infrastructure 3 Download page at http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html for the latest patches and see Patch Management for ESX Server 3 at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_esxupdate.pdf for installation information.

If you need to apply these patches to several ESX 3.0.1 hosts then the esxupdate command is your best bet. Instructions can be found in the VMware ID: 7557441 article. Simply save the patches to a shared VMFS volume where all of your hosts have access to them, or put the patches in your http depot web directory and then follow these instructions:

Note: All virtual machines on the host must be either shut down or migrated using VMotion before applying the patch. A reboot of the ESX Server host is required after applying this patch.

Once you have downloaded and extracted the archive, and if you are on the ESX console and in the VMFS directory with the patches, install the update using the following command:

# esxupdate update

If you want to run esxupdate from a different directory, you must specify the bundle path in the command:

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-7557441 update

If you are using an http depot then use the following command:

# esxupdate -r http://your.depot.url/ESX-7557441 update

During the update process, logs appear on the terminal. You can specify the verbosity of esxupdate logs by using the -v option as shown below.

# esxupdate -v 10 -r file://<directory>/ESX-7557441 update

For more information on using esxupdate, refer to the Patch Management for ESX Server 3 tech note at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_esxupdate.pdf.

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