upgrading vmware tools with orchestrator

[RUG201110141]

I still have numerous ESXi 3.5 hosts even though I've upgraded 3/4 of my environment to ESX 4. The remediation task for upgrading vmware tools does not work for virtual machines running on esx 3.5. Can orchestrator automate the task of upgrading vmware tools on an ESX 3.5 host and reboot the virtual machine. Does anybody have an example to help me out with? I'm sure it probably can but I've just setup Orchestrator and have not done anything with it yet. I was figuring this may be a good task to start with.

[admin · Accepted solution]

vCO server is shipped with a VC4.0 plug-in with which you can configure only 4.0 and later hosts/VC. In order to execute workflows on ESX 3.5 hosts, you would need to install the VI3.5 plug-in, which is there in vCO server /extras/plug-ins. The file has extension VMOAPP, which you can change to .jar and then retrieve the .dar file of the VI3.5 plug-in. After successfully installing the same, you can then drill to the built-in workflows library, to the VMware Tools category, under which you can find the Upgrade tools workflow. This would automate the up-gradation of tools, provided the toolsAutoUpdateSupported is set to true in the VM. Also, this API successfully works if the tools are not up to date. For ESX 3.5 hosts, you would need to execute the workflow in the VIM3 virtual machines management category.

Hope this is helpful.

[admin]

Actually, you can leave the VMOAPP file extension. In the vCO web configuration utility, the General section includes a tab to Install Application. Simply browse to the VMOAPP file and click Install.

Bill