How to Change Update Manager Patch Depot URL

[Ralf_Bauer]

We have just moved our first ESX hosts to 3.5. Now we wanted to use VMWare Update Manager in order to scan and remediate our hosts. The problem we are facing now is, that the Update Manager is expecting the patch depot to be on the same IP address as the Virtual Center web service.

In our environment, we have a production LAN (10.15.23.0/24) and an administrative LAN (10.15.123.0/24). The ESX consoles are connected to the administrative LAN only. Our VC server has one adapter connected to the production LAN and a second one connected to the administrative LAN. This means, all communication between VC and the ESX hosts has to run over the administrative LAN. This works fine for all purposes, except for the Update Manager (VUM). Regardless of the VUM configuration, VUM always tells the ESX hosts to connect to the production LAN IP address when scanning for updates.

Excerpt from the vmware-vci-log4cpp.log:

Task started...

Patch depot url: http://10.15.23.68:80/vci/hostupdates/hostupdate

... but the connection needs to go to http://10.15.123.68:80/vci/hostupdates/hostupdate, since this is the address of the VC server on the administration LAN.

Is there a way to change the patch depot URL used by the VMWare Update Manager?

Any help or comments appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

Best Regards,

Ralf

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

I don't see any way to change it either. The may be some alternatives. You could try changing the Managed IP Address of the VC and see if thats were it collects the value for the hosts url.

The other alternative is something I would normally do on a formal firewall but you could set it up as a work around. Turn on routing on the VC but ensure the local firewall is configured.

Then at least you can route the traffic at the VC.

Multi homed hosts can get challenging I would recommend a static routing entry on the VC.