upgrade to 5 from esx4.0 - "upgrading the host will remove these modules"

[TedH256]

Hmm -

have HP DL380 G5 servers with all standard HP components, connecting to NetApp fc luns with 4.0

I've upgraded vcenter to 5.0, and added the hosts. I've also uploaded an ESXi 5 image into update manager. When I "scan for updates" I get the message above, and the update is flagged as "incompatible" so that I cannot perform the upgrade. I would rather NOT manually install the hosts, though I suppose I could do that.

How do I determine what modules these actually are, and whether I care (maybe in some bizzaro universe there is a part in this box that is not supported on esxi5??)?

"software modules oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx published by third party vendor(s) are installed on the host. Upgrading the host will remove these modules.
"

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

This is discussed in the release notes for Update Manager.

Compliance status is Incompatible  and remediation fails for ESX  4.1 Update 1 hosts when you scan or remediate the hosts against an ESXi  5.0 upgrade baseline
When you perform an upgrade scan of ESX 4.1 Update 1 hosts against an  ESXi 5.0 upgrade baseline, the compliance status might be Incompatible.  The remediation of ESX 4.1 Update 1 hosts against an ESXi 5.0 upgrade  baseline might fail. The scan and remediation problems are caused by  third-party drivers in the ESX 4.1 Update 1 installation. After an  upgrade scan of hosts, more information about third-party software is  provided in the conflict details for the upgrade baseline.

Workaround: Two different types of drivers might cause the problems.

• Async drivers, for example oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx.
  The vendor will release drivers asynchronously for ESXi 5.0, and the  drivers will be made available in the VMware patch depot. If you require  those drivers, you must download them, use Image Builder CLI to build a  custom ESXi image that contains them, and remediate against the custom  image. Without the ESXi 5.0 drivers, pertinent hardware devices might  stop functioning.
• Deprecated drivers, for example oem-vmware-esx-drivers-net-vxge.
  The driver is discontinued in ESXi 5.0 because the pertinent hardware  is discontinued. In the Update Manager Remediate wizard, on the ESXi 5.x  Upgrade page, click Remove installed third-party software that is incompatible with the upgrade, and continue with the remediation.  You should be aware of the functional implications of third-party  software removal, because pertinent hardware devices might stop  functioning.

Good Luck!

[admin]

HI,

Look like the support for that component is dropped in ESXi 5.0. You can force the upgade with option  asking for permission to drop 3rd party modules from the host.

Thanks,

Anand

[TedH256]

ok thank you

follow-up:

how do I determine whether "oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx" is a module that this hardware is actually using?

If it is - how do I determine WHICH particular bit of hardware it is - so that I can find the esxi5 driver on the HP site and figure out how to integrate it with the image?

The name "oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx" means nothing to me - these servers don't have a scsi card named at all like that.

Ted

[TedH256]

oh, and what does "dropped in MN" mean?

the state of Minnesota dropped support for these devices? :-):smileysilly:

[TedH256]

oh god one more-

If I found out that I don't really need the module, how do I "force the upgade with option  asking for permission to drop 3rd party modules from the host" as it does not appear that applying the upgrade is an option, once it has been declared incompatible

[TedH256]

Folks -

I may be dense, but I still don't know how to determine what exactly the drivers that are mentioned ARE -- and in FACT whether my hosts are using/require them?

I actually would be kind of surprised if the HP esxi image did not have this driver in it - if these are HP devices. And I do not believe that there are any non-hp devices in these hosts.

So - how do I match the driver name with the actual devices that are physically in the hosts, to determine whether or not this driver can be "safely removed" on upgrade - or, alternatively, so that I can go fetch the driver from HP (or find a more current esxi image from HP, that has it ...)?

Thnx much for helping to clear my muddle-ness about this!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

The one driver package is for 3Ware 9000 series storage controllers (a package should be released at some point) and the Exar Corp's X3100 Series 10GbE NICs (which I beleive have been discontinued from support).

[mcowger]

MN was the code name for the ESXi5 product during beta.

[Stream2back]

Hi everyone.

How do i force upgrade via update manager ? Is it the checkbox after the EULA that says "Remove installed third-party software etc ...." ?

If so the update still fails with the following error:

Error in ESX configuration file (esx.conf).
error
17.10.2011 11:54:55
Remediate entity
xxxx.xxxx.com

[TedH256]

Great - thank you Dave.

So these hosts are not using either of these bits of hardware - should be good to go I guess, right?

[TedH256]

Thanx - I will look at this again - but when I was working with these systems on Friday, it appeared that there was no option for continuing to remediate - as if the "incompatible" status simply removed the option. But perhaps I am mis-remembering. It is very helpful to know that even if I can "force" the upograde remediation the process will "fail" - but should be ok, I presume.

Thank you, all

[Stream2back]

Indeed the check box i mentioned was the button to "force upgrade" and the other error message i got was unrelated to the case in this thread.

[TedH256]

The readme indicates that you may still get that error after remediation - but I guess the suggestion was that the upgrade would have been successfull anyway.

In my case, I did the remediation, checked the box for "remove modules" and the upgrade succeeded nicely.

I would still like to know, generally, how I can identify which pieces of hardware match with particular driver modules.

Oh well - my upgrade went well - quite nice to be able to smoothly go from ESX 4.0 to esxi 5.0 = sweet!

[LuckyLeavell]

I have a similar problem. I have a standalone ESXi 4.1 development system on a Dell Optiplex 960 which I was attempting to upgrade interactively to 5.0 when the installer detected the two VIBs mentioned here:

     oem-vmware-esx-drivers-net-vxge

     oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx

changing the Upgrade option to Force Migrate. At this point I aborted and booted back into ESXi 4.1.

From what I can find, there may be an updated driver from Western Digital for the second item but I am not sure about the first one.

Question: Would choosing the second option: Insrall ESxi preserving the existing datastore allow me to use my existing VMs or will ESXi 5 reformat the VMFS datastore?

Alternatively, what do I need to do to copy the existing VMs off so I can do a fresh install of ESXi 5 and copy them back?

[Greg07755]

Hey can you provide me with more information on how I can get the driver for oem-vmware-esx-dsrivers-scsi-3w-9xxx  or where I can locate the VMware patch depot?