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lavinl
Contributor
Contributor

Need an Automation process

We have a vsphere environment with development VMs that have configurations that change constantly. What would be nice would be a way to run an update script throughout all the VMs to bring them up the current level for both patches and homegrown tools. I am told this exists already. Can someone point me to where I would go for such a tool?

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logiboy123
Expert
Expert

Do you mean OS patches for the VMs, VM Tools updates or application updates?

For the OS you can just use WSUS if they are Windows guests. For VM Tools and VM Hardwre you can use RVTools.

Regards,

Paul

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Tsjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The vSphere Update Manager can handle both hosts and VMs, even though I haven't yet tried patching VMs with it yet.

WSUS or, depending on how critical the VMs are, just Microsoft Update if there's any MS VMs.

Landscape or automatic patch installation if you got any Ubuntu / Linux VMs.

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lavinl
Contributor
Contributor

I am also looking for a way to run update scripts for homegrown tools and have it run on every VM in a cluster to bring the tools up to date?

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Tsjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If they are homegrown tools why not add a function to them that checks against a repository on a regular intervall to see if they are up-to-date?

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lavinl
Contributor
Contributor

I understand the idea of adding the function.. but again... how do I add this function to all existing VMs. Its not like Windows where you can put it into a login script.

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Troy_Clavell
Immortal
Immortal

It sounds as though VMware Update Manager may fit your need for VMware Guest Tools updates. With that said, VUM no longer can do patch management of guests.  You'll need to look at 3rd party options or even vCenter Protect (formally Shavlik).  Also, guest tools can be automated through the "check and upgrade tools at power cycle" option in the settings of the VM

As for scripting some of this, you may look at PowerCLI and http://ict-freak.nl/2009/07/15/powercli-upgrading-vhardware-to-vsphere-part-2-vms/

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Tsjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Just to make things clear, you're not looking for a solution to keep guests, hosts or the VMWare Tools updated. You're interested in a solution that can automagically keep software, that you've created, up-to-date. Is that correct?

And since it's not "Windows where you can put it into a login script", what operating system(s) are we talking about?

Which vSphere version? Since Troy is correct that in vSphere5 VUM can no longer do patch management of your guests.

Message was edited by: Tsjo

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lavinl
Contributor
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mostly SLES 11 SP1 and Centos 6.2... Right now we have users run a script by hand to make sure they are up to snuff, but  I would like a way to automate that,

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Tsjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Since users are able to run a script by hand, why not automate it with cron?  I mostly work with Ubuntu and use a private repository for software and SVN for configuration management. Maybe a internal yum repository would work?

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lavinl
Contributor
Contributor

You are missing my point, I still need something to add this cronjob or whatever it is globally to all VMs.

The same would be true for Windows systems.  

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Tsjo
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I believe that is something your vSphere systems or tools can't help you with, a shell scp loop or a domain scheduled task would on the other hand.

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