VMware Communities: Message List - ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

JamesClements — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:54:56 GMT

I have posted my experience of the update bug issue here:

http://www.jjclements.co.uk/index.php/2008/08/20/vmware-esx-date-bug-fix/

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

crazychris — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:58:38 GMT

Patch Works.

Message was edited by: crazychris

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Martin Norrsken — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:31:49 GMT

The problem was that while I was patching, the UM downloaded the "new" upgrade 2, so half of my servers got the "bugged" u2. Also the update manager worked so bad that it took several tries and reboots of the ESX hosts to get the update going.

Today HA stopped working everywhere, so I've spent the morning putting every machine in maintenance mode, putting it in another cluster, leaving maintenance mode, entering maintenance mode and putting it back in the original cluster. It seems to work now.

Also: When migrating the virtual center server with DRS during this time, Virtual Center promptly bugged and I had to restart the service. Solid...

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

COS — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:33:15 GMT

Martin, I totally agree, however, It is highly recommended that if one patch worked, you should wait a while for a much more stable patch later. Also I HIGHLY recommend using the "Good ol fashioned" commandline patch at the console. UM seems to be having some issues on updates. Basically too many incremental patches going on. If one patch fixed the expiry bug then stick with it till a solid patch is released. This goes for everyone else out there. There's really no need to patch every minor version of the expiry bug. If the first patch worked for you and you can VMotion, Storage Vmotion and DRS is working, hell, take the rest of the day off and have a dang BEER!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Martin Norrsken — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:47:05 GMT

All this patch mayhem has really put a big dent in my trust for VMWare. I've now spent something like 20 hours just trying to patch our four machines. Update Manager behaviour is random at best. I expect the next VI update to be much more professional or we will actively start to look for alternatives.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

wally — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:48:17 GMT

Already posted my experiences with it here http://communities.vmware.com/message/1025016#1025016

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Zomby1 — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 12:16:32 GMT

Anyone have any information about this "alternative installation procedure" ?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

mjlin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 01:39:04 GMT

Dear VMware Customers,

In addition to the express patch and the re-issued ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 release, we now have an alternative installation process for customers who haven't applied either to hosts that were affected by the product expiration issue.

Below are the details we list at http://www.vmware.com/landing_pages/esxexpresspatches.html:

*Known VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 Express Patch Installation Challenges

The following message is applicable ONLY for customers who had installed the impacted release of ESX 3.5 Update 2 (build number 103908), but not yet applied the express patch.

We are aware that you may encounter the following challenges installing the express patches needed to correct the problem:

Internal change control procedures
No available server to VMotion running VM's onto
Unable to schedule a maintenance window

If you experience one of the challenges listed above, please contact your support provider and indicate you need assistance with the U2 Alternative Install Process (U2 AIP). The support team can assist customers with this alternative installation procedure.

Thanks you,

The VMware ESX Product Team

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Dollar — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:27:08 GMT

I had posted earlier about issues going back to update U1 boxes using Update Manager. This issue was resolved by the slew of patch releases on 08/13. I can now update U1 (and prior versions) without error (using the default "Critical Host Updates" and "Non-Critical Host Updates" baselines). This results in a server being updated to 3.5.0, 110268. However, now, using the default provided baselines ("Critical Host Updates" and "Non-criticial Host Updates"), I can no longer patch any box that is 3.5.0, 103908 (the time-bombed version of U2). Installation fails on ESX350-200802301-BG stating that "A newer version of the patch is already installed".

If I create a separate baseline that only includes patches released 08/12/08 - 08/13/08... removing the Time-Bomb patch (ESX350-20086812-BG), but including ESX350-Update-02, then I can patch U2 Servers that have not yet had the "Time-Bomb patch (ESX350-20086812-BG) installed. These servers wind up as version 3.5.0, 110181

If I attempt to install all patches released from 08/12/08 - 08/13/08 onto U2 Servers (3.5.0. 103908) that have already had the "Time-Bomb" fix (ESX350-20086812-BG), then installation fails on ESX350-200806812-BG with an error that "Installation failed - higher version of patch already installed".

A quick check reveals that, following the bevy of patches released on 08/13/08, if you use the default baselines, they attempt to reinstall stuff as old as 03/04/08.... even though these patches are already installed. In addition, all servers now show "Not Compliant" in update manager for all of these old patches, dating back to 03/04/08.... even though these patches are already installed.

So it looks the like the "Critical Host Updates" and "Non-Critical Host Updates" default updates, if unedited, are no longer applicable, functional, or usable for any U2 version servers... meaning you must have a seperate "All Update" patch list for Pre-U2 servers and U2-Post servers. Which complicates matters if you have a mix of servers within a cluster or data center. In a multi-DataCenter, Multi-Cluster, hundred+ host environment, this is somewhat of an annoyance. It also leaves us without a single query capability to determine compliance of our servers.

I have not read through the remainder of the thread or KB articles thus far today so I am unsure if there is a repair in work but I am finding it difficult to get my servers at the same revision levels (3.5.0, 110286). The results described above are consistent and reproducible in my environment.

EDIT: Correction - I have managed to get U2 version 3.5.0, 103908 updated to version 110286, U2 version 110181 upgraded to 110286, and everything prior to 103908 upgraded to 110286. It's not as consistent as I would like and it is requiring 2 baselines in my environment to make this occur.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences? the "alternative install procedure"

wally — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:20:07 GMT

We applied for the Alternative Install Procedure (received an email about this). This afternoon we received the download link and tried the install in our testenvironment. This patch contains an install script and some binaries. Your host will NOT be put in maintenance and your VM's DON'T need to be shutdown.

After applying the patch I could not find it with "vmware -v" (still 103908) or "esxupdate query" that was a bit scary but vmotion DID work so I could put hosts in maintenance (applied patch on entire farm) and am now busy patching the entire farm the 'regular' way to build 110268.

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

milson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:29:22 GMT

I have not tried any pre-u2 hosts as of yet.

As for hosts with u2 and the timebomb patch, I've been remediating to the new builds (just leaving everything selected) and it has been working fine.

Note the VMware tools build is new and also installed fine for me, although having the original u2 build of VMware tools does not appear to trigger any 'out of date' notification so unless I hear/see otherwise, I'm not redoing all the tools upgrades....

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

dstarkey — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:24:58 GMT

I am seeing the same results with UM, but when I try to remediate the systems it tells me that they are already up-to-date and will not apply any patches. Also, UM says that I am not compliant on any of my systems that have the old U2 update and the Time Bomb patch.

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

GTO455 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:59:36 GMT

Yes it certainly does show 2 releases of U2 when performing a query. The update took about 10 minutes. A reboot of the host is required to upgrade from this build (110181) to this build (110268).

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

milson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:31:10 GMT

Looking very much like we'll be reinstalling with this new build, whether through update manager or other means.

Just noticed this addition to the release notes which would back that up:

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006745

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

GTO455 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:18:19 GMT

I'm seeing the same issue and installing it on a swing server to see what happens.

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

milson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:55:10 GMT

I'm applying them to one of my u2 hosts that doesn't matter just to see what happens...

As I watch the progress I'm noticing VMware tools is the new build version as well, my guess is we might see the u2 original tools installs marked as 'out of date' in VIC after these are applied...

Ugh, perhaps there is plenty more cleanup to do yet....

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

RobertGreenlee — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:52:03 GMT

HELLO... VMWare Support???

I'll probably be opening up a case tomorrow morning but it would be easier if they can just post a fix ahead of time.

Re: New Problem with Update Manager

milson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:17:55 GMT

Same issue as RobertGreenlee here - anything with the express patch shows u2 and the other re-released packages as non compliant.

We need a KB from VMware here to close the loop on all of this!

New Problem with Update Manager

RobertGreenlee — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:45:39 GMT

2 of my 5 servers are still running update 1. the other 3 were patched yesterday with the hotfix. I'm planning on bringing the U1 using Update Manager tomorrow so now that they released the new version of U2 I told Update Manager to download it. It did do that but it also duplicated the original 16 patches and the old U2 version. I've attached pictures so you can see. The first U1.jpg pic is from a U1 host that needed U2 and some other non-critical patches. The U2.jpg pic is from a U2 host that was patched yesterday. It already has the original version off all these patches but after telling it to Scan for Updates it was to reinstall all of these.

I know I can pick and choose the correct updates but I'm looking for a way to cleanup these duplicates.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

MicroAdmin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:26:47 GMT

I manually performed the update on the hosts:

1. Shut down or vmotion all VM's off host. Unfortunately our primary DC was on the first host I patched, so I had to just shut it down, no problems doing that because we have a backup DC.
2. Using WinSCP, I put all of the files for the update in my /var/updates directory.
3. Put host in maintenance mode as esxupdate would NOT function without being in maintenance mode(usually normal but I recall seeing some people say they did NOT have to do that)
4. Esxupdate -n update
5. service mgmt-vmware restart
6. Brought host out of maintenance mode>
7. Dealt with the fact my hosts never reconnect to the virtual center server automatically by doing a manual disconnect and reconnect of host.
8. Powered VM's back on, worked like a champ.

Not too shabby!!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

bryanard — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:50:18 GMT

I had to put it on the local machine, cd to the repo directory, and do
straight "esxupdate update" in order to get it to work. It doesn't seem
to like having the directory/location specified on the command line.
Cheers,
Bryan

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

PhilAngus — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:38:24 GMT

I have created one from a template without any issues.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Neth66 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:36:37 GMT

I'm a little (just a little) disappointed in VMware's tech support on this. We have Platinum Support, and I requested an email as soon as the express update was available (it was supposed to be posted Tuesday night) I never got any notification, when I got into work on Wednesday morning, I saw the update was available. I know they must have been flooded with requests, and I was able to get the update myself.

That being said, I had no problems downloading the update, and I was able to apply the update to my servers with minimal downtime. Our Tier 1 & 2 hosts are lightly loaded and I was able to find a host that had a clustered VM and a VM that was not yet in production, so I started my patching by updating that server. I was then able to VMotion VMs to that host to patch others, I got Tier's 1 & 2 updated during normal business hours with no users impacted.

Tiers 3 & 4 were a little different. That cluster is more heavily utilized and there is less headroom. I had to wait until after normal business hours to start the patching, I took all test/dev VMs down (leaving more headroom) and in all only had to take two production systems down for a total of about 15 minutes.

All-in-all, I'd say the process went very well. I was hoping that there wouldn't be a requirement to shutdown VMs to apply the patch, but even so, having two VMs down for 15 minutes to update 14 hosts with almost 100 VMs is not too bad.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

JNorberg — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:13:02 GMT

we had one host which did not have update 2 and that successfully applied the fix and cheerfully ignored update2!. On the U2 hosts though we just remediated against the standard baseline and it all went ok.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

gdragats — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:54:30 GMT

found it "esxupdate update" in the patch folder.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

gdragats — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:47:33 GMT

Hi Gordow,

I'm trying via esxupdate and was getting the same result:

I was typing the following :

esxupdate -d /var/www/html/esx35/ESX350-200806812-BG/ scan and getting this error.

I then typed "esxupdate -d /var/www/html/esx35/ESX350-200806812-BG scan" without the slash and worked.

Only one problen i am experiencing. whe I do a -- test update I get:

~~root@esx1 headers~~# esxupdate -d /var/www/html/esx35/ESX350-200806812-BG update
INFO: No -b specified, selecting all bundles in depot.
INFO: Configuring...
ERROR: Integrity Error!

Why the imtegrity error?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

smrchy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:04:37 GMT

Just wondering: Did anybody manage to add a VMware Server to the VC after the patch?

We have several ESX server and some lonely and old VMware Servers.

I get "A general system error occurred: internal error" when i try to add a VMware Server.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

irinab — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:43:02 GMT

That's what I'm seeing also.
We are using ILO and there is no fault there.

Please let me know if you find anything.
Thanks,
Irina

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

JNorberg — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:04:25 GMT

Patching via gui (remediate option) went fine for two hosts. On one host however, which was not running update2, the remediation failed with a "general error" and disconnected from VI. After a reboot it shows that U2 failed to apply, but the patch to fix U2 did apply---- shurely shome misstake here. Must we apply all patches except the U2 fix and then apply the U2 fix?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences? - Solved

gi-minni — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:54:32 GMT

I am using the Virtual Infrastructure Update to update ESXi and everything is in good shape now.
Is there a reason why you use superfit's method? The update from a gui is easier

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Gordow — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:23:09 GMT

Is anyone else having difficulty installing the patch via the esxupdate method? I keep getting an error saying 'Descriptor release (ESX350-200806812-BG) doesnt match directory name' when installing it on our ESX 3.5 server. I've tried downloading the patch twice but still the same error. We've only just installed ESX and I setup the patch depot on a server that is running Apache 2.2.

The command I'm entering is esxupdate -d http://<apache_server>:<port>/esx35/ --test update.

The website exists and works so not sure what is wrong.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

johnpearson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:47:15 GMT

Did I say Service Console to kick off auto StartUp? I meant to say from Virtual Center. It's late and I need to get to bed!! Sorry.

John

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

johnpearson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:44:19 GMT

Not sure if this has been experienced yet or not as I haven't read thru all the posts on the subject. Our dev infrastructure is as follows: 54 hosts, 300+ VM's, ESX 3.5U2, VC 2.5U1, all local host storage...no shared storage thus no vmotion, HA or anything else. Update Manager worked like a charm. Updated all hosts tonight. One interesting observation is the fact that updated hosts that were NOT rebooted and have NO VM's on them seem to be running at about 60% avg CPU load. Updated hosts that were NOT rebooted WITH VM's on them seem to be ok, but the host still running "hot". Updated hosts with or without VM's on them that DID get a reboot are fine. Don't know if this is because VC is running U1 and ESX running U2, and the perf charts getting flawed, or whether this is a problem with not rebooting the hosts. As soon as I reboot a updated host with no VM's (previously running at 60% CPU) it flattens out and runs fine, typically at about 2-3%. Thought the guru's at VMware might want to test this out. Object "0" on the CPU perf chart is at near 100% until I reboot. I assume this is the Service Console? We run 800Mb RAM on the SC. If you don't max the RAM on the SC, cold migration is painfully slow. Can't wait for shared storage (coming soon!)

John

PS. Suggestion for the next release... provide a way to kick off automatic startup of VM's from the Service Console as provisioned in the VM Startup/Shutdown config.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences? - Solved

qmcnetwork — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:42:33 GMT

Superflit's steps worked well for our ESXi farm. The rest of the ESX 3.5U2 servers were updated successfully with Update Manager. Fortunately we had a server free of VMs so it could be put into maintenance mode without powering off any VMs.

jonatj

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

ElmbrookDan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:44:06 GMT

I don't think it matters if you use Update Manager or esxupdate. The express patch is the express patch regardless of how its applied and I don't see the "new" update 2 on the site as of yet.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

ElmbrookDan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:41:31 GMT

Patched my 2 ESX hosts at around 1 today. I had 2 vms on one host and 5 or so on the other, we are a new install and migrating servers to ESX. I used the esxupdate method, shut down the two servers on host1 applied the patch and restarted the vm's. Total down time was about 5 minutes. After the patch was applied on host1 I vmotioned the VM's from host2 and applied the patch. Total down time was about 5 minutes when this was all said and done.

Sure this could of had far reaching negative ramifications but my guess is, for the most part, people were able to recover fairly quickly once the patch was released.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

TonyJK — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:46:36 GMT

My supervisor prefers to use Update Manager to fix the bug in ESX 3.5 U2 (He believes that the new U2 should be better than the express patch).

We have tried for a number of time to download latest software via UM. Unfortunately, we keep on getting the "Metadata download failed" message. Is there any suggestion ?

Thanks

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

ejward — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:16:04 GMT

I finally patched my last host with update manager.

As much as I've been cursing Vmware for the last 2 days, if this had been Hyper-v, I'd still be scheduling meetings with dozens of business owners to discuss scheduled downtime. And I'd be coming in at 2:00am on a Sunday morning.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

kbenoit — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:55:26 GMT

I installed ESXi about 2 days before the time license bug and was not to familiar with the product, it took me some time to figure out how to deal with the update, but I finally made it... To update, you, once again, need a windows machine and the patch (ESXe350-200807812-O-BG.zip). Instead of using the update manage like everyone else, you get a zip containing 3 zips files, an xml and the zips signatures, uncompress the inner zips, it will create a folder containing a patch per zip. Inside the folder created for each zip, there's a file named remoteInstall.exe. You need to run these executable in a command prompt beiing in the folder of the patch. You need to pass the adress of your host, your username and your password in clear on the command line. In unix terms it looks like this:

unzip ESXe350-20087812-O-BG.zip

cd ESXe350-20087812-O-BG.zip

unzip ESXe350-200807812-I-BG.zip

cd ESXe350-200807812-I-BG

./remoteInstall.exe -h <hostname> -u <username> -p <password>

Good luck

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

bryanard — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:18:07 GMT

esxupdate -d <path> update doesn't work for this, but esxupdate update did.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences? - Solved

superflit — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:13:37 GMT

Good Work,

Just to simplify the process for the beginners as me in the ESXi.

As I am starting to use the free ESXi this bug happened, and this was my first update.

What I recommend and what I did:

1- Install the remote client called VMware-VIRemoteCLI-3.5.0-104314.exe.

2- Go to start -> vmware -> VMware VI Remote CLI -> command prompt

this was my process:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Remote CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl --server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -i -b c:\downloads\ESXe350-200807812-O-BG.zip
Enter username: root
Enter password:
unpacking c:\downloads\ESXe350-200807812-O-BG.zip ...
( skipping verification : ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807812-I-BG.zip.si
g )
unpacking ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807812-I-BG.zip ...
( skipping verification : ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807402-T-UG.zip.si
g )
unpacking ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807402-T-UG.zip ...
( skipping verification : ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807403-C-UG.zip.si
g )
unpacking ESXe350-200807812-O-BG/ESXe350-200807403-C-UG.zip ...
Installing : ESXe350-200807812-I-BG
Copy to server : VMware-image.tar.gz ...
Copy to server : VMware-OEM-image.tar.gz ...
Copy to server : descriptor.xml ...
Copy to server : install.sh ...
Copy to server : contents.xml.sig ...
Copy to server : contents.xml ...
Removed ESXe350-200807812-I-BG SuccessNot applicable : ESXe350-200807402-T-U
G. Skipped.
Not applicable : ESXe350-200807403-C-UG. Skipped.

The host needs to be rebooted for the new firmware to take effect.

Type 'yes' to continue:
yes
Rebooting host ...

End Disconnect

That it...

the real deal is the command vihostupdate.pl --server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx -i -b <zipped file with the update...>

And everything is ok now

Thanks

Carlos Henrique Cano

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

bryanard — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:53:34 GMT

I don't seem to be able to apply the patch. MD5SUMs are good, but when I run esxupdate I get "ERROR: Integrity Error!". Can the rpms be applied directly without using esxupdate?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Jorgie1 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:23:34 GMT

I just started using ESXi when it became free...and then this.

I just now applied the patch successfully after unsuccessfully attempting to do so from 2 different Windows XP installs in 2 different VMs (1 in VirtualBox 1.6.4 on Solaris the other on VMware Server 1.0.6 in openSUSE 11.0). It only worked after trying it in a native install of Windows. Maybe it's just not me RTFM'ing, but just in case anyone else tries this, it apparently doesn't work!

...Pete

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

COS — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:12:52 GMT

Well....
My test servers are patched and running. Used command line method not update mgr. My previous posts were obviously out of anger and frustration on money not well spent.

For all ESXi users GOOD LUCK! It's a free product.
If you have never researched any info on how VMWare looks at fixing anything on their free product, look up "network just stopped working" in the vmware server forum. The users basically identified the issue and did VMWare listen or have they done anything? Nope. http://communities.vmware.com/thread/91454?tstart=0&start=405

So, sisnce our servers are running fine, it's time to go have a big fat BEER!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

THP — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:06:42 GMT

The patching was smooth thru update manager - only had to shut down a handful of guests on the first host and then round robin'd the rest.

It would have been better if not for the VI Clients recent tendency to die every 5 minutes!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

dpomeroy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:58:05 GMT

COS wrote:Can someone please explain to me why a "FREE" product has a friggin expiration date? It just does NOT MAKE SENSE!

Even worse, is a Licensed version one has paid for has this expiration "BUG".
YES IT IS A BUG!

QA missed the big fat cock roach in their process.

Here's what I want. I want install Enterprise binaries that has NO expiration. If our agency paid in excess of $15,000.00 to license our servers (Enterprise version) the friggin thing should never ever expire.

I feel like VMware does not trust it's customers eventhough they have already spent their thousands of dollars on their product. MS 2003 Server does not expire does it? NO.

Enough with this garbage about software piracy and protecting your product, the same old boring played out song. If we paid for it it should never expire. VMWare's method is basically saying "you're all pirates and eventhough you paid up the a(insert letters here), I still don't trust you worth doodoo".

That's why this issue is here.

Hmmmm....
This scenario should sound familiar to VMware, remember the "FREE" vmware server release?....tick....tick....tick.... Edit

Just to clarify becuase there seems to be some confusion on this. The license expiration issue has nothing to do with how VMware sells or licenses its products and the reason this happened on a "Free" product is because the time expiration was left in from the Update 2 beta code. VMware puts a hard expiration date into their beta products, this has nothing to do with preventing people from stealing the product, but to ensure beta products that have bugs and different features don't stick around and end up in production. So again, this was a huge mistake on their part to not take that code out, and we all have a right to be mad about it, but lets be mad for the right reasons. That being said, lets try to keep this thread to a technical discussion of the patch.

So far our experiance has been mixed, we have a large environment with a variety of different hardware as well as ESX and ESXi embedded and installable all running. Most of the issues we have seen involve ESXi, standard ESX patching with UpdateManager appear to be working fine. I believe there is a problem with this patch and ESXi and UpdateManager, more info to follow.

Don Pomeroy
VMware Communities User Moderator

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

JohnTroyer — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:41:39 GMT

Glad you got through. Sounds like it could be problem with Akamai, which helps cache web content around the world, since I can see it fine here in Palo Alto. I will report it internally.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

wedelr — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:49:49 GMT

Deleted

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

alex555550 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:03:06 GMT

Hy,

I don`t know if the Update Manager can also delet Updates?. But you can test if thei`re flushing out if you let the Update Manager Search again.

1. Open a cmd and change the directory to „C:\Programme\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager"

2. Use the vmware-umds.exe there shuld be an option to redownload Updates.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

captab — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:58:59 GMT

Those links don't work but I was finally able to get in through http://kb.vmware.com and link through Most Recent.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Froste — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:50:33 GMT

Updated all of our 24 servers using 3.5.0u2 patch using the Update manger. We weren't able to use a swing machine so we had to pick a handful of machines that we could do without for ~5 minutes. After the first machine was patched we did rolling upgrades and everything has been working smoothly since then. We're using IBM DS8100 SAN storage and IBM HS21 Blades for hosts.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

captab — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:47:12 GMT

Still no luck. Same error with the old links and the one you provided. Could be on my side, bur kb home doesn't work either, everything else does though.

Thanks

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

JohnTroyer — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:41:09 GMT

captab, it looks like it's redirecting to a static page right now. Try again, or try this one:
http://kb2.vmware.com/kb/1006716.html

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

captab — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:27:02 GMT

I think your kb server is down. I was able to download the express patch but have been trying to get article KB1006721 and keep geeting "Page Load Error - Address Not Found." I've tried going through KB Home but it hangs and won't let me go any farther. I'm sure it's probably getting hammered right now. Before I install the patch, I'd like to know about any gotchas.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Troy Clavell — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:10:07 GMT

I have an 8 Node Cluster with 250 VM's, after the patch all powered on successfully and vmotion is now working again. I have set DRS to it's most aggressive state to test automation. So far so good

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RobertGreenlee — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:05:40 GMT

I hate to go dlightly off topic with this next question but since it relates to Update 2 I'll go for it. We use HP BL 465c's and 685c's for our environment. I love the new hardware health monitoring as it will give us a way to send out alerts if we have hardware failures on the hosts. Unfortunately even through all of the components show up Normal the server itself is in Yellow state. I already have a case open on this but I'm curious if anybody else is seeing this.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Nick_F — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:03:21 GMT

Did the people that have updated via Update Manager just add the patch "Fix the time-bomb issues for U2" to a new baseline (on it's own) and remediate against that? Just wondering if I need to do anything else (only my second time using UM, the first time applied U2 and broke everything ).

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

vmproteau — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:51:47 GMT

Update Manager question:

Is there a way to clear out patches and redownload. I still show instances of the the old 7/25 release patches in my baselines. I thought the next scheduled update would remove those but, they remain (see attached image)

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RobertGreenlee — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:47:10 GMT

Well the HA error went away when I reenabled HA. I'll keep an eye on it. Beyond that I now have 3 of 5 ESX hosts on U2 with the patch. My boss wants me to wait until at least Friday before upgrading the remaining 2 hosts just to let this new patch bake a little bit.

Thanks

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RParker — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:36:17 GMT

Looks Good! Nice Work VM Ware. It was rough 24 hours, but it appears everything is working well. I don't hold any grudges.. This was an excellent response.

Thanks!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RobertGreenlee — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:35:12 GMT

I guess thats part of the problem.. I'm not getting any errors under Tasks and Events. I do not however have HA enabled at the moment. I'll turn it back on very soon afterI finish patching my last U2 host.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

oturn — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:33:57 GMT

Ok, I'm getting mixed messages here...

I see the crazy runarounds that folks are using to get this patch installed, but.....

Can we SCP and unzip the patch on our ESX hosts, then run esxupdate update -- WITHOUT the host entering maintenance mode, and WITHOUT affecting the running guests on the host being patched?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Dollar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:23:16 GMT

You'll need to get more specifics on the error by looking in the "Tasks and Events" tab. If the error is something to the related to the server name (or service console) not matching the IP Address in DNS (on any interface.. or something like that), even though they do, I have seen this as well (on two occasions)immediately following the intial reboot from an installation of U2. A subsequent reboot of the host resolved it.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Kallex — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:21:12 GMT

Ok, found the issue myself as well... turned my memory wasn't that bad this time: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2008/07/28/esx-35-u2-and-ha-error/

Br,

Kalle

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Kallex — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:17:37 GMT

I remember reading something about HA agent relating to host name cApItAlIzAtIoN differences between DNS and configuration causing issues with the U2.

I might recall wrong, but might be worth checking was it with HA and was it U2... definately there was some issue.

Oh and to be specific the issue was caused by the exact comparison failing for different casing. But you'll find the exact info on that in the specs once you find that exact issue.

Br,

Kalle

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RobertGreenlee — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:13:24 GMT

On my hosts that have been upgraded to U2 and now this patch I'm geting a Configuration issue. HA agent on <host name> in cluster <clustername> in <datacentername> has an error. Not seeing any alarms through. Anybody have an idea what might be causing this.

Thanks

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Kallex — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:09:21 GMT

Hi!

Adding another success story of patching ESXi standalone:

1. Precautions: didn't turn the host time to anything, but did remove the time sync option on ALL the VMs. In case of patch failing, restarting the VMs would then be possible after host time change.

2. Downloaded the proper ESXi patch package

3. Downloaded the Remote Client for Windows and installed it (can be found here: http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/drivers_tools.html)

4. Shut down all VMs, putting one in Suspend (test system, nothing important data within)

5. Putting host in maintenance mode

6. Tried out few referenced commands, ended up with the one

C:\tmp\setup>"\Program Files\VMware\VMware VI Remote CLI\bin\vihostupdate.pl" --server <my_server_ip> --username root -i -b ESXe350-200807812-O-BG.zip

7. Answered "yes" for reboot of host

8. Reconnected with VI Client after reboot, tried to re-execute the patch set (as I'm not familiar if it could have included other post-reboot patches), getting "Not applicable" for all the patches.

9. Exit maintenance mode, started VMs without any problems

10. Enjoyed the power of ESXi once again, starting ~10 VMs in parallel from 8 disk RAID10 SAS array with quite impressive startup times (no big penalty of huge parallel I/O burst)

Br,

Kalle

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

dougjef — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:01:38 GMT

Overall I've had mixed experiences patching about 15 hosts. I've been using update manager. First I do a scan, then the remediation..It goes for about 10 minutes and then says VMware update manager had a failure. Generally a reboot of the host, re-scan, then re-remediate works. But I've only been successful patching two hosts without a reboot PRIOR to applying the patch.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Dollar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:00:52 GMT

"Migration will cause the virtual machines configuration to be modified, to preserve the CPU feature requirements for it's guest OS"

A "non-issue". This occurs (also) whenever upgrading versions..... at least it started occuring to me after the upgrade from 3.0.x to 3.5.... and will occur the first time a VM is VMotioned from a previous version host to a newer version host. I've seen it several hundred times. It will only occur on this first migration and will not occur subsequently, and has never caused me any grief, other than wondering what causes it.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

kcvman — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:56:57 GMT

One host in cluster was upgraded to U2. Ran the timebomb patch ESX350-200806812-BG on it. Rebooted the host.
Now, when trying to vmotion a guest to the patched how, we get the following warning from vmotion -

"Migration will cause the virtual machines configuration to be modified, to preserve the CPU feature requirements for it's guest OS"

This has never occured before on this host before upgrading it to U2 and appling the patch.
Performing vmotions to any other host in the cluster does nto produce this error. All hosts are identical hardware. This cluster did have DRS running on it for at least 2 moths before this issue. This host did have vmtioned guests on it before this issue.

Any help?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

smithers0105 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:37:03 GMT

Umm, forget my previous question about why has my patched 3.5U2 test server still got the problem, I have since found that the license server name (which was an FQDN to the license server located in our production AD domain) did not resolve in our test domain DNS server. Quite why it was missing is strange, quite why the 2nd test server (3.0.2) running against the same license server did not complain, I do not know (maybe 3.0.2 only checked for the license server during the initial install/configuration?) Added the FQDN into our test DNS and Edited the license server info and hit OK, all licensing popped up again.

Anyway, a schoolboy error, obviously Sorry to waste people's time!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

sjourney — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:18:29 GMT

yes Baseline is dynamic, also created new baseline with just that patch. still compliant...

Bastian.Haas wrote:

sjourney wrote:UM downloaded patches last night, did scan on hosts this AM, UM still says they are Compliant?? What gives? I know I'm effected. Have not had any problems with UM before...Is your baseline dynamic? If not you'll have to change the baseline to include the patch.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

smithers0105 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:16:55 GMT

Patched our solitary 3.5U2 server (one of a two server test cluster, the other member still being on 3.0.2 - our other 4 production servers are still 3.0.2 also). I've never patched any of the servers since our 3.0.2 environment was installed a year ago, so my first time to use esxupdate.

Used pscp to copy the patch over to the ESX 3.5U2 box, then 'esxupdate update'. All appeared to install OK, with the 110181 build displayed in the VI Client. However, still comes up with the error message when clicking on Licensed Features (see attached image) or when migrating a VM from the 3.0.2 box and trying to start it up. esxupdate -l query says the patch is installed. Re-running esxupdate update says it is already installed.

In case it helps, I actually only ran the 3.0.2 -> 3.5U2 upgrade (via the CD) yesterday (Aug 12) so the box was broken on first startup and so was not a working 3.5U2 server that I installed that existed before August 12, I had never even taken it out of maintenance mode until this morning after I installed the patch (was getting Operation Timed out errors doing the exit maint mode). Restarted the ESX server and the VC several times, no joy (I have not restarted the 3.0.2 server). I also tried changing the time back to 8th August with the same problem. Now, I had checked all the tabs for the when it was 3.0.2 just before running the 3.5U2 upgrade, so I KNOW that the licensing was definately working.

It's a test server but we still have VMs used by end-users, all of which are just about squeezing in to the remaining 3.0.2 cluster member.

Any ideas how I can get out of this one?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Intelligen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:14:30 GMT

When the patch was released last night (were CST) I patched our DR host host's. It took awhile for them since they are across the WAN with a 35 MB connection and bringing down the patch was a bit slow. Once the install initiated it wasn't too bad.

Same with our main DC, 4 hosts but these went faster since they are on local LAN so pulling down the 100 MB patch was nothing.

I ended up patching a total of 8 ESX hosts with no problems. Went very smooth. Glad VMware came through with a patch so quickly.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

mdonovan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:04:03 GMT

My results: 10 hosts, used Update Manager to do the update, VMotioned all vm's off host, applied patch, set date/time to current day, no problems I see.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

EvareAdmin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:59:27 GMT

Updated all of our servers using 3.5.0u2 last night about 20 minutes after the patch downloaded to VMware Update Server. We weren't able to use a swing machine so we had to pick a handful of machines that we could do without for ~5 minutes. After the first machine was patched we did rolling upgrades and everything has been working smoothly since then. We're using EQL iSCSI storage and HP DL360G5p for hosts.

Eric

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

KlinikenLB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:53:02 GMT

My environment:

4 x HP DL585G2, each with 4 x AMD8220 and 64GB RAM, all affected by the timebomb.

My solution steps (all managed with VC, without console):

1.) Actualize my UM baseline with the timebomb patch.

2.) Find two hosts without timecritical VMs / without VMs synching time to host.

3.) Disable NTP on one of this two and set date to last week.

4.) Migrate all VMs to this host so that the other host ist empty.

5.) Enable NTP on this host again.

6.) Scan and remediate the empty host. After this I had build 110181 on this host.

7.) Not neccessary, but I booted this host manually.

8.) Migrate all VMs from the "full" host to the updated host.

9.) Scan and remediate the now empty host ...

... and so on for the rest of my hosts.

Everything seems to work fine now.

No question, it was a big bug. But thanks to VMware: they solved it very well.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Dollar — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:52:05 GMT

We are in the process of patching about 100 hosts using Update Manager, with about 50 completed. Of the 50 hosts, I've only experienced problems with one (VMKernel unloaded and did not come back) requiring a reboot of the host.

We are using a "Swing Host" in each Cluster to start the process.

No other problems noticed with the patch. However, I notice that Update Manager can no longer be used to update any Hosts prior to U2. If I attempt to update a U1 (or earlier) device using Update Manager, the VMKernel unloads and does not load back, which prevents the Host from being rebooted or Update Manager from completing. The host server remains in a "not responding" state until it is manually rebooted, at which point comes back up and is accessible and functional. The version number of the server will be 3.5.0.110181 but if you check Update Manager it still shows "Update 2" as not being installed.

I hope this is clear enough..... it's been a long night.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

GregMon — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:50:59 GMT

Does this patch require u2, or can it be applied from a base 3.5?

Also can it be applied to go from 3.01 to 3.5?

Thanks,

Greg

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Go_Bucky — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:28:31 GMT

First, let me say I appreciate everyone who has posted their experiences with this patch. Reading through what you've all done gave me a little more confidence.

For the most part, I did the same process as AndyMcM, except I used the VI Client rather than the CLI, and I used Update Manager. So far, no major issues.

A couple of things did come up for me, that I thought others might see:

1. My Update Manager did not have the new patch because I had it set to download only once per week. As mentioned by others, you can force Update Manager to download the new patches by going to Scheduled Tasks, right-click on your VMWare Update Manager Update Download task, and click run.

2. I had production VM's running on all my hosts, so I had to use the time trick send one host back to Tuesday. No problems there...I did this right from the VI Client. But, after doing this, I started seeing an HA error being reported on my cluster and on all hosts. I figured this was due either to the license problem or the time change, and ignored it. After VMotion'ing all VM's to other hosts, I started the remediation task. This took about 45 minutes.

When it was done, I still had the HA errors. I then enabled NTP on the host where it was disabled. That seemed to clear up the error on the Cluster and unpatched hosts, but not the newly patched host. This error also prevented me from VMotion'ing VM's to the newly patched host, which was the plan. After scratching my head for a while, I right-clicked the host, and clicked Reconfigure for VMware HA. This resolved the error. I was then able to VMotion VM's to this host, and I was on my way to patching our additional hosts.

Anyway, I don't know if anyone else will run into the HA error, but if you do, it's easy to resolve. Thanks again to all who are posting their experience...

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Bastian.Haas — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:11:33 GMT

sjourney wrote:UM downloaded patches last night, did scan on hosts this AM, UM still says they are Compliant?? What gives? I know I'm effected. Have not had any problems with UM before...

Is your baseline dynamic? If not you'll have to change the baseline to include the patch.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

carpenike — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:57:15 GMT

Confirmed on changing the date on destination host. Disable NTP and change date, VMotion to that host from the other hosts and than enter maintenance mode. Just worked for me.

For some reason I got this file ESXe350-200807812-O-BG.zip when I used the download link. It didn't have the contents.xml.sig file inside of it so esxupdate gave me an error. Just went to the page and downloaded it again and got a different file that worked fine. Thanks VMWare.

And in answer to the dude further back who threw a fit... Get a grip man. It's a bug, but it makes sense that they'd put something like that in their development code to ensure alpha/beta users upgraded at release date... Granted I think it's a bit severe and should have given a week or two of warnings by default... Oh well.

Thanks for the quick resolution!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

supporti — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:52:17 GMT

Hello,

thanks to all for helpful advices. After getting the failed update process killed (stopping update process, shutting down all guests , reboot host) updating worked fine. Now the update process is fixing the problem on the last of 10 hosts. O.K. I had to shut down to live hosts, but they were "only internal".

regards

Thomas

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

sjourney — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:38:14 GMT

UM downloaded patches last night, did scan on hosts this AM, UM still says they are Compliant?? What gives? I know I'm effected. Have not had any problems with UM before...

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

George_B — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:32:14 GMT

Why are people setting their clocks back to do the upgrade?

I have a simple two machine cluster which runs about 90 development VMs and the upgrade has been relatively easy. Fortunately I had all the VMs bar one on one host as I was testing iSCSI jumbo frame performance on the other host. It was just a matter of using esxupdate to install the patch and then slowly VMotion VMs to it so I could then upgrade the other box. This worked even though the host with the VMs was running the faulty version.

As long as you can have at least one host in your cluster which is not running VMs then you should be able to do the upgrade with no VMs being turned off or clock roll back. Alternatively just find a spare server, install the latest ESX version and run it in 60 day trial mode, then migrate VMs to it off one host, upgrade, move back, rinse and repeat.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

RickPollock — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:16:56 GMT

Installed the patches via esxudpate update and everything is now back to normal.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

AndyMcM — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:47:19 GMT

Just wanted to put in my 2cents worth and update my experiences, think they might be useful to some people.

We have 4 ESX hosts that have around 60 VM's on them a lot of them are production so no chance on getting them shutdown and they are evenly spread over the 4 hosts.

Sooo, what I did was shut down 20 odd test/development ones. leaving the prod ones there.

Next I stopped ntpd on each of the boxes from service console (service ntpd stop) and then changed date using (date -s 080808) , I was then able to VMotion off all the VM's off one of the hosts and put it into maintinance mode. After which I was able to VMotion from the three hosts one at a time and update all the hosts, without any VM reboots!!!

One caviat, make sure that VMware Tools do not sync time with the host, we are fortunate enought that we do not do that and use our AD Server for time sync.

Hope this helps someone!!!

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

KlinikenLB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:17:21 GMT

Yes, it works for the host. But not for my my VMs

Otherwise I could have done this solution yesterday ...

Has anybody an idea for my CPU masks?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

AndyMcM — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:31:13 GMT

I am in middle of updating our 11 ESX, 8 done so far and not done a single reboot of the host, am like you more concerned about minimizing shutting down VM's!!!!

Only thought I guess, its good to reboot an OS now and then to flush the pipes.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Bastian.Haas — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:05:34 GMT

KlinikenLB wrote:
I would really like to do

but VMtion works only to unaffected hosts

You could set the destination host system date before 2008/08/12, then it will work

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

KlinikenLB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:03:45 GMT

Why does everybody talk about the host reboot? Is there any advantage that the host doesn't need to boot?

I'm more interested in no VM reboot ...

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

AndyMcM — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:01:12 GMT

You will be able to VMotion onto Pre Update 2 machine no problem, at the end of the day this bug is just down to licensing and what you can and can't do on an unlicensed version of ESX.

In fact I have read but not tried, if you change the date to pre 12th August on an Update 2 Machine you should be able to VMotion from/too it, useful if all your hosts are already Update 2 and need to put one into maintenance mode.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

KlinikenLB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:00:52 GMT

I would really like to do

but VMtion works only to unaffected hosts

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

wila — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:58:38 GMT

Deployed patch using

esxupdate update

and everything is running fine. NO host reboot required as advertised.

thanks
Wil

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Trigsy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:58:32 GMT

All worked for me, just make sure it's in Maintenance mode before applying patches. Build number updated to 3.5.0.110181.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

Bastian.Haas — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:51:25 GMT

KlinikenLB wrote:

How can I change the CPU mask without power down the VM? I want to get one of my AMD8220 free to continue with update ...

Why not simply VMotion the remaining VMs to the other 8220s? Or don't they have enough resources in reserve?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

paulmack — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:45:42 GMT

As long as you haven't installed Update 2 you should be able to vmotion your vm's off fine.

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

davidjerwood — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:41:13 GMT

Many Thanks.

I do have more that 1 host, Fortunately for me I had not updated them so they are not affected by the bug. Will my virtual machines vmotion off successfully. Or will the bug affect it?

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

irinab — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:39:22 GMT

"We had the same problem here, also with previous versions of "esxupdate". The solution is to change to the directory that contains the patches, and simply run "esxupdate update" there, without specifying the depot using the "-d" switch."

This worked for me.
Thank you,
Irina

Re: ESX 3.5U2 Patch experiences?

KlinikenLB — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:34:44 GMT

We also have 5 hosts affected (1 x AMD285, 4 x AMD8220). The AMD285 has no guests at the moment and was in maintenance mode, so I installed the timebomb patch with UM and it worked fine (no reboot of the host).

But now I have the next problem: these CPUs are only VMotion compatible if the appropriate CPU mask is set in the VM. Some of my VMs have set this CPU mask, there VMotion to the AMD285 went well.

Now I wanted to change the CPU mask on other running VMs (in earlier versions of VC this was possible and then VMotion worked well). But in the new VC the advanced CPU options are greyed out for runningVMs. And editing of the vmx file does not help.

How can I change the CPU mask without power down the VM? I want to get one of my AMD8220 free to continue with update ...