So I wanted to update my vCenter 6.5 u1 to u3 and the latest security patch in the light of recent events. The UI update showed me that I was patched to the latest version I and could clearly see that I was on 6.5 u1 and not u3.
The workaround is to patch the software update script, log in as root and issue the commands :
sed -i "s/if metadata\['buildnumber'\] <= _getBaseBuildNumber():/if int(metadata['buildnumber']) <= int(_getBaseBuildNumber()):/g" /usr/lib/applmgmt/base/py/vmware/vherd/base/software_update.py
service-control --stop applmgmt
service-control --start applmgmt
The script worked and I could actually now see the upgrades that were available to me.
And after that I could clearly see that there was a problem, the indication was the following message :
vcenter65:/usr/lib/applmgmt/base/py/vmware/vherd/base# service-control --stop applmgmt
Perform stop operation. vmon_profile=None, svc_names=['applmgmt'], include_coreossvcs=False, include_leafossvcs=False
Error executing stop on service applmgmt. Details 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
Service-control failed. Error 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
I noticed it also when I wanted to go ahead and backup the current setup before I upgrade that I get a lot of errors in the log file and I can't actually do a backup.
vcenter65:/var/log/vmware/applmgmt# cat backupRestoreAPI.log
2021-09-22 16:08:43,119 [MainProcess:PID-2456] INFO: The location provided: 10.3.1.121:21//vCenter6.5
2021-09-22 16:08:43,364 [MainProcess:PID-2456] INFO: The backup dir exists and empty
2021-09-22 16:08:43,453 [MainProcess:PID-2456] ERROR: Failed getting service information: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
2021-09-22 16:09:20,602 [MainProcess:PID-2456] INFO: The location provided: 10.3.1.121:21/vCenter6.5
2021-09-22 16:09:20,847 [MainProcess:PID-2456] INFO: The backup dir exists and empty
2021-09-22 16:09:20,947 [MainProcess:PID-2456] ERROR: Failed getting service information: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
Has anyone ever had an experience such as this one and how do I solve for that problem ? I would not like to just go YOLO and do the upgrade to 6.5u3 and it fails because of some services not working properly.
Thank in advance!
