Update of VCSA 6.5.0.15000 doesn't work

[bbiandov]

Hi everyone,

I've run VCSA for some time and every time there's an update I use the GUI of VMware vCenter Server Appliance to initiate it. It has worked just fine for a year or so.

Well until today, I went to check for an update and there was one: 6.5.0.22000 Build Number 9451637 so not a huge jump from the current one which I was running 6.5.0.15000 Build Number 8024368

So I did what I usually do: I initiated the update. That's where the issue is occurring, the update failed and left VCSA in a weird state so I had to restart the VM. The GUI error during the update was this:

From this point any time I attempt to install the update VCSA gets stuck into an unusable state and I have to restart the VM. Effectively I am NOT able to install the update to 6.5.0.22000 Build Number 9451637

Any ideas?

[sk84]

We have the same issue from time to time. I think the update server from VMware is not really reliable sometimes.

Just use the full patch iso: VMware Knowledge Base

[bbiandov]

sk84​ Thanks Sebastian, I should've done the ISO since the get go but sadly once the GUI update failed I was hosed, now even the ISO fails and vCSA in general is screwed so now I have to undergo the hassle to deploy a brand new one. The software update fails and that's that, as they say.

[RajeevVCP4]

May be this is firewall issue from where you are trying to execute installation.

Mount iso on other vm and see are you able to do fqdn of vcsa.

[Vijay2027]

If you haven't redeployed vcsa yet could you attach software-packages.log to the thread.

Location: /var/log/vmware/applmgmt

Use winscp to copy the files.

VMware Knowledge Base

And share the output of below command:

vpxd -v; rpm -qa | wc -l ; chage -l root

[bbiandov]

Vijay2027​ Thanks Vijay, I was going to go down that rabbit hole and investigate the package errors but a quick Google search revealed if not an identical issues - very similar ones so I knew this isn't an isolated case. I scraped my broken VCSA and deployed a new one, this time using the latest release 6.7.0.14000 Build number 9451876 so hopefully when an update comes for that appliance it will install without breaking it. There aren't any updates yet for 6.7 so time will show.

Thank you for your suggestion

~B

[Vijay2027]

We've seen too many issues related to expired root password.

Run the below command to disable root password expiration policy:

chage -M -1 root

[bbiandov]

Thanks - done and done

Connected to service

    * List APIs: "help api list"

    * List Plugins: "help pi list"

    * Launch BASH: "shell"

Command> shell

Shell access is granted to root

root@oakvcntr1 [ ~ ]# chage -M -1 root

root@oakvcntr1 [ ~ ]#