topic Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic in vCenter™ Server Discussions

vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

fish0101 — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 12:17:19 GMT

Hi,

I have been trying to update the vCenter server appliance in my lab from 8.0.1.00300 to 8.0.2 but after data migration the appliance restarts and only displays a kernel panic.

I have been able to pin-point this issue to FIPS mode which seems to be enabled in the GRUB boot options. Once I set "fips=0" instead of "fips=1" the VM boots normally but the update still fails according to VAMI.

This also happens when I try to deploy a new VCSA with version 8.0.2.

I haven't had any issues in the past with updating or installing the appliance on older versions. Is there something I could do?

Thank you in advance!

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

ameneche22 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 14:41:56 GMT

Same exact issue

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

jworkmanplane — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 15:31:05 GMT

Also seeing this issue.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

pmichelli — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 16:10:49 GMT

Just curious how you were doing the update?
I did mine by mounting the patch ISO (not the full release) and then SSH to the VCSA. Don't use the bash shell once you connect and run the following commands :

software-packages stage --iso

software-packages install --staged

This ran all the prechecks and updated without any issues. Took about 20 minutes

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

fish0101 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 16:47:37 GMT

I have tried multiple methods. Through VAMI (online and patch ISO) and through the CLI (with the patch ISO) as @pmichelli described but had the same outcome every time.

I believe the update process itself isn't the issue as the kernel panic also occurs when I deploy a new VCSA version 8.0.2 using the installer. Installing and updating to VCSA 8.0.0 worked flawlessly.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

ameneche22 — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 18:55:36 GMT

Same here tried all three methods and they all cause a kernel panic

CD Mounted
Update through web console
Update lifecycle manager

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

VRO123 — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 12:29:54 GMT

Hi

I'm also facing the same issue; do we have any solution?

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

ameneche22 — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 13:15:57 GMT

Hoping someone from Vmware is going to respond this is definately an issue.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

Camero — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 01:17:43 GMT

@ fish0101 , ameneche22, jworkmanplane, pmichelli, VRO123,

Could all of you please confirm the Hardware (Make model, CPU) and ESXi version where the appliance is deployed and facing this issue ?

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

ameneche22 — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 01:24:39 GMT

VMware ESXi, 8.0.1, 22088125
Model: ProLiant DL365 Gen10 Plus
Processor Type: AMD EPYC 7262 8-Core Processor
Logical Processors: 32

Vcenter 8.0.1 Build: 22088981

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

jworkmanplane — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 01:45:16 GMT

VMware ESXi, 8.0.1, 21495797
Dell PowerEdge R6515
AMD EPYC 7F72 24-Core Processor

Trying to upgrade from vCenter 8.0.1 22088981

Don't tell me this is an AMD problem.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

pmichelli — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 12:12:09 GMT

In my situation (upgrade worked), it was my test vCenter that has no hosts attached to it.

It is a second VM that lives in my DR cluster that I use only to test upgrades before moving to DR then to Prod clusters

The hardware backing it is a PowerEdge FX2 with FC640 Blades and Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6238R CPU @ 2.20GHz for processor

Version:	8.0.1
Build:	22088981

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

jworkmanplane — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 17:51:43 GMT

@pmichelli did you ever run into the kernel panic issue or are you just telling us your upgrade worked? I'm sure plenty of people successfully upgraded using the multitude of available methods, but I'd like to hear from somebody who ran into this specific issue and what they did to resolve it.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

pmichelli — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 17:56:42 GMT

No kernel panic. I only replied because VMware often wants to know from folks that had problems and those that did not. Perhaps its tied to the AMD chips. My upgrade (in a very scaled down test vCenter with no hosts or VMs attached to it) was successful with the CLI update.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

MidlandGroup01 — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:28:50 GMT

I have had the same exact issue

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

MidlandGroup01 — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 12:35:10 GMT

Same.... failed in fips mode!

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

Camero — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 02:57:45 GMT

Thank you for providing the information on HW details.

Info is shared with internal teams to look at the issue.

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

ameneche22 — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 16:13:13 GMT

8.0.1.00400 Build: 22368047 updated fine from 8.0.1.00300

New release of 8.2 from October failed too

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

MidlandGroup01 — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 14:57:26 GMT

I had the same results... 8.0.1.00400 Build: 22368047 updated fine from 8.0.1.00300

Re: vCenter 8.0u2 kernel panic

Camero — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:41:32 GMT

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/95172

There is no solution for the issue encountered and is limited to certain specific HW listed in the KB.

Only option for now is to deploy vCenter 80U2 on an alternate HW .