Yesterday I was working on patching activity and found new thing in configuration backup of ESXi. Hence thought of sharing it (Many of you would have know this earlier, but still wishing to share this for those who have not come across this scenerio).
test server named testesx1 (version ESXi5.0.0, 469512) was incomplaint, so scheduled the patching activity, before that I took the configuration backup of testesx1 as a part of the Fallback plan.
Executed the below command to take the configuration backup -
After patching with update 1, bundle no# has changed.
(Bundle no #768111) -
Since I have modifed few configuration changes ((at vSwitch level and some of the advanced properties)) in the ESXi host post the patching. So I was under the impression that, we can easily restore from the old configuration which I have taken it prior to the activity starts.
PS: I am not trying to roll back the packages which I have installed, just trying to get a config changes back
When I tried to do that, I got the below error
then I tried it twice, still the same error. Thought of backing up the configuration once again in the current state and modifed few changes @vSwitch level, then tried restoring it, found it was successful.
So the conclusion is prior to rolling out any (SG/BG/updates) bundles to ESXi 5, if you took the configuration backup in a file and at later stage if you think it will be usefull to restore, the configuration backup will not be valid, don't rely on that file and end up in problem.
I welcome your comments, please correct me if I am wrong anywhere or missed anything else (I am human).