VMwarewolf » VMware ESX

VMware ESX Patches out today

VMwarewolf — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:18:44 +0000

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VMware ESX Patches out today

Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager

VMwarewolf — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:37:37 +0000

Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager 5.0 (VMware Press Technology)
is the complete, technical, hands-on guide to VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 5.0 installation and configuration for experienced VMware professionals.

VMware forum moderator and vExpert Mike Laverick fully explains SRM 5.0’s failover/failback procedures, walks readers through configuring storage replication with hardware from several leading suppliers, and shows how to efficiently implement fast, automated, centralized disaster recovery.

Drawing on his extensive experience with SRM and vSphere, Laverick identifies common pitfalls and errors, explains why they occur, and shows exactly how to fix them. Fully up to date for SRM 5.0, this book delivers “in-the-trenches” technical knowledge you won’t find anywhere else, including expert guidance for utilizing SRM 5.0’s advanced new vSphere Replication (VR).

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Administering VMware Site Recovery Manager

ESX 4.0 Patch 10

VMwarewolf — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:55:24 +0000

ESX 4.0 Patch 10 is now available for download from VMware’s website: http://www.vmware.com/patch/download/

Resolves an issue where ESX host might fail with PSOD when a physical NIC that does not support VLAN offload is moved from a vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) to a vNetwork Standard Switch (vSS) or from one vDS to another vDS.
Resolves an issue where powering on virtual machines might report some virtual machines in an invalid state due to exhaustion of VMkernel socket resources on ESX hosts.
Resolves an issue where a cache error occurs when a user name or group name that uses mixed case is fetched from an Active Directory Server through LDAP or QAS.
Updates the ESX service console kernel to kernel-2.6.18-238.9.1.el5.
Upgrades qlogic-fchba-provider to version 1.3.5, which contains updated QLogic CIM provider libraries.
Updates the krb5-libs and krb5-workstation RPMs to version 1.6.1-55.el5_6.1.
Updates mptsas, mpt2sas, and mptspi drivers.

Documentation & Release Notes
VMware ESX 4.0, Patch Release ESX400-201110001 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1036391
VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch Release ESXi400-201110001 http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1036397

More KBs on the patches:

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ESX 4.0 Patch 10

Patch now or forever hold your peace!

VMwarewolf — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:57:12 +0000

Anyone using ESX 3.5 listen up – this effects you!!

I cannot stress this enough. If you do not apply this patch before June 1st 2011, you will be forever out of luck in applying ANY patches after that. Plan accordingly gentlemen.

To continue patching ESX 3.5 hosts, patch ESX350-201012410-BG needs to be applied BEFORE June 1, 2011. This patch updates the secure key.

Knowledgebase Article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1030001 Critical Impact: VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-201012410-BG:

If there any updates on this, the KB will be updated.

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Patch now or forever hold your peace!

ESX Patches out Today

VMwarewolf — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:49:33 +0000

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ESX Patches out Today

vSphere 4.1 Patch 02 Released

VMwarewolf — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:43:59 +0000

VMware today released the new VMware ESX 4.1 Patch 02.

Improvements included in this patch:

This patch addresses Virtual Machines configured with CPU limits experiencing a drop in performance when the CPU limit is reached.
This patch fixes ESX hosts that may intermittently lose connectivity with the vCenter server.
This patch updates bzip2 and bzip2-libs RPMs to newer versions.
This patch resolves an issue where an ESX host might enter an unresponsive state if one of the mirrored installation drives is unexpectedly removed.

Detailed information regarding resolved and known issues and enhancements can be found at ESX 4.1 Patch Release Notes:

VMware ESX 4.1 Patch is available for download at http://www.vmware.com/patch/download/.

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vSphere 4.1 Patch 02 Released

New ESX and ESXI 4.0 Patches today

VMwarewolf — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:30:58 +0000

Some new patches released for version 4.0 of ESX and ESXi

1019834	VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch Release ESXi400-201003001
1019833	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch Release ESX400-201003001
1019497	VMware ESXi 4.0, Patch ESXi400-201003401-BG: Updates Firmware
1019496	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003405-SG: Updates samba-client and samba-common
1019495	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003404-BG: Updates lpfc820 driver
1019494	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003403-SG: Updates acpid
1019493	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003402-BG: Updates hpsa driver
1019492	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003401-BG: Updates vmkernel64,vmx, hostd, and scripts
1013176	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003407-BG: Updates ehci-ehci-hcd driver
1011559	VMware ESX 4.0, Patch ESX400-201003406-BG: Updates megaraid-sas driver

As always, make sure you have adequate backups and test all patches in your test environment before deploying to production systems.

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New ESX and ESXI 4.0 Patches today

New ESX and ESXI 3.5 Patches today

VMwarewolf — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:44:34 +0000

Some new patches released for version 3.5 of ESX and ESXi

1018703	VMware ESXi 3.5, Patch ESXe350-201003402-T-BG: Updates VMware Tools
1018702	VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-201003403-SG: Updates VMware-webCenter-esx
1017683	VMware ESXi 3.5, Patch ESXe350-201003401-I-BG: Updates firmware
1017464	VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-201003402-BG: Updates SCSI driver for Qlogic Fibre Channel HBA
1017457	VMware ESX 3.5, Patch ESX350-201003401-BG: Updates VMkernel, Tools, Hostd, VMX, VMnix

As always, make sure you have adequate backups and test all patches in your test environment before deploying to production systems.

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New ESX and ESXI 3.5 Patches today

Impact of wrong OS type for VMs

VMwarewolf — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:34:57 +0000

Someone asked me what the impact would be if a VM is installed with the wrong OS type.

My first thought was that this probably would introduce some performance issues, but then it hit me that this would cause the incorrect VMware Tools to get installed in the VM, leading to all sorts of unintended behaviors. Even worse, if the correct MCA/MCE architecture is not presented to the guest during boot I don’t think it will start at all. We use guest OS type to get this info (it only matters during boot as far as I know).

How to fix it:

Power off the VM.
Modify via GUI option General of the properties of your VM.
Power on the VM.
Reinstall the correct VMware Tools.

Anybody know of any more gotchas associated with having the wrong OS type specified for your VM?

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Impact of wrong OS type for VMs

Upgrading ESX 4.0 to Update 1 using Update Manager

VMwarewolf — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:30:56 +0000

Who is affected:

Customers who are using VMware vSphere ESX 4.0 and are wanting to install update 1, via VMware Update Manager (VUM).

Problem description:

Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 U1 using VUM fails or times out. Rebooting host results in a PSOD and the host has to be re-installed.

Workaround:

Please disable any 3rd party hardware monitoring agents running on the ESX 4.0.0 server before applying the update.

Customers that have already run into this issue and have installed the update but have not rebooted, need to contact Support.

The 3rd party agents can be enabled again after the upgrade is completed.

ESX 4.0 U1 is no longer available for download.

For additional details, see Upgrading ESX 4.0 to 4.0 U1 using Update Manager fails or times out and rebooting the host results in a purple diagnostics screen (1016070).

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Upgrading ESX 4.0 to Update 1 using Update Manager