cpuid stibp ibrs ibpb cpu flags causing vmotions to fail

[sjesse]

Hi

I'm trying to migrate some virtual machines from a 5.5 update 3b host to a 6.5 update 1 host and some moved fine, but some are giving this error

The target host does not support the virtual machine's current hardware requirements.

To resolve CPU incompatibilities, use a cluster with Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) enabled. See KB article 1003212.

com.vmware.vim.vmfeature.cpuid.stibp

com.vmware.vim.vmfeature.cpuid.ibrs

com.vmware.vim.vmfeature.cpuid.ibpb

from what I see this is from the spectre/mountain fixes. Is the only option to shutdown these virtual machines to migrate them or has anyone else seen a workaround. I have every critical patch for update 1, I have not tried update 2 yet because I have verified it works with all of our third party software yet.

[sjesse · Accepted solution]

Its because we were missing the microcode updates on the 6.5 hosts. We have been using the critical updates baseline, and I guess vmware didn't tag this update as critical. I was able to move them after updating the host completely.