ESXi 5.5 U1 Upgrade Tip

Hello,

Just came across with the observation when any one is looking to upgrade an existing ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 5.5 U1 then make sure you pick the right ISO file.

Here is the screen shot of the download page

Now as you can see the 1st option is the Roll Up ISO file which you can’t use to do the upgrade.
Downside of using the same you may not see your HBA on the host which you were able to see while the server was running on ESXi 5.5 base image.

So the actual ISO you need to use is titled as “ESXi 5.5 Update 1 ISO image (Includes VMware Tools)” or you can use one of the vendor supplied image on the “Custom ISOs” Tab.

This list under Custom ISOs varies time to time so make sure you get the correct image of the vendor if having a hardware supplied by that vendor.

Hopefully this will help anyone to do the smooth upgrade without getting into any other Gotchas of upgrading the driver/firmware on the Hardware later after the upgrade.
At the same time if you are running Nexus 1000v then you may want to check the compatibility on Cisco’s web page

http://www.cisco.com/web/techdoc/n1kv/upgrade/utility/n1kvmatrix.html

Here are some KB articles of VMware which will help you deciding your upgrade plans so that you can do the upgrade properly by following the recommended sequence


http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2037630

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2059455

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2031331

Hope this helps when dealing with Nexus 1000v and other products upgrade.

@cormachogan has blogged about Software ISCSI issue here so please take a look at that as well.

Thanks for your time.

Please share and care!

Revealing hidden bnx2 driver version bnx2-2.2.3m.v41.2

Hello,

Recently for an issue I was troubleshooting, tried to look for this Broadcom NIC driver used by 5709 series on vSphere 4.x/5.x.


By looking at the HCL site I found that the latest version is bnx2-2.2.3m.v41.2 which is compatible for Broadcom NetXtreme II Network Adapters. (NX-II BCM5706/BCM5708/BCM5709/BCM5716 10/100/1000/2500Mbps).

So I went to the driver download site and tried to find the same but no luck with the Filter facility either.

Then I just use Google'd the driver version and to my surprise the same version is built into Driver Version 1.76.54.v41.1.

Here is the Version Details:

"Driver CD includes drivers cnic-1.76.59.v41.1, bnx2-2.2.3m.v41.2, bnx2x-1.76.54.v41.1, and bnx2i-2.76.56.v41.2. Customers using this driver CD should update all four drivers included. Bnx2 driver supports NX-II BCM5706/BCM5708/BCM5709/BCM5716 10/100/1000/2500Mbps and bnx2x driver supports NX-II BCM57710/BCM57711/BCM57711E/BCM57712/BCM57712MF/BCM57800/BCM57800MF/BCM57810/BCM57810MF/BCM57840/BCM57840MF 10/100/1000/2500/10000Mbps. This driver CD is also certified for iSCSI Offload and iSCSI boot."

And below is the download link for the same driver:

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=DT-ESX41-BROADCOM-BNX2X-17654V411&productId=230


Now you can just imagine how it got into a different version but the driver version 2.2.3m.v41.2 is in fact included in the above link for 1.76.54.v41.1.

If you solve the mystery then leave the comment please !!

Enjoy updating the driver on your Broadcom 1G NICs ;-)

Share and Care !!

vSphere, vCloud and other VMware Product Updates

There are new updates available for the following products and including their release notes.

 To download the updates you need MyVMware credentials.


VMware vSphere 5.1 Update 1
https://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-vcenter-server-51u1-release-notes.html


VMware vSphere Update Manager 5.1 Update 1
http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-update-manager-51u1-release-notes.html


vCenter Server Multi-Hypervisor Manager 1.1
https://www.vmware.com/support/mhm/doc/vcenter-multi-hypervisor-manager-11-release-notes.html


VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 5.1
https://www.vmware.com/support/converter/doc/conv_sa_51_rel_notes.html


VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat 6.5 Update 1
https://www.vmware.com/support/heartbeat/doc/vcenter-server-heartbeat-65-u1-release-notes.html


VMware vCloud Director 5.1.2
https://www.vmware.com/support/vcd/doc/rel_notes_vcloud_director_512.html


VMware vCloud Director Appliance 5.1.2
http://www.vmware.com/support/vcd/doc/rel_notes_vcloud_director_512.html

VMware vSphere Replication 5.1.1
http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere5/doc/vsphere-replication-511-release-notes.html


vSphere Site Recovery Manager 5.1.1
https://www.vmware.com/support/srm/srm-releasenotes-5-1-1.html


vSphere Data Protection 5.1.20
https://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdp_5120_releasenotes.html


vSphere Storage Appliance 5.1.3
http://www.vmware.com/support/vsa/doc/vsphere-storage-appliance-513-release-notes.html


vCloud Networking and Security 5.1.2a
https://www.vmware.com/support/vshield/doc/releasenotes_vshield_512a.html


Please refer the upgrade guides before you plan the upgrade to stay away from any gotchas.

Enjoy your upgrade Time !!

Care and share !!

Simulating Patch/Driver update without rebooting ESXi Host

I was reading Mostafa Khalil's Storage book and came across with a fantastic option available with esxcli command using which you can simulate the patch update or any other Async Driver Update and you can see if the update will succeed or fail if there is any dependencies  on other packages.

You can first go through an installation dry run to verify if there are any problems as it would tell if there is any dependency which needs to removed as well. 

e.g. I am putting here the bn2nx driver for a 10 GB Braodcom NIC and I have copied the the zip file under /vmfs/volumes/bcm directory

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/bcm/BNX2X.zip --dry-run

This is a verbose version of the above command where we are defining the -d option

esxcli software vib install --depot /vmfs/volumes/bcm/BNX2X.zip --dry-run

Now once the command finished running you will see the output contains an entry with "Reboot Required: false", which means that at this time reboot of the ESXi host after the installation is NOT required. As this was just a simulation only but when you actually decide to put the patch/driver update you may need to reboot the host for certain services to be restarted or certain driver modules to be loaded upon the restart. 

You can run /sbin/services.sh restart or if you are in / directory then just run services.sh restart, which will restarts all the services on that host. 

This can only run from the ESXi Shell via SSH or locally on the ESXi host using DCUI/ILO/DRAC/RSA/KVM etc etc.

With the above command it will make possible for you to determine and plan the maintenance window accordingly and not affecting the production environment at all.

This command can let you know if you need any other update/dependency (if there is/are any) beforehand so that you can put them on the host before applying the actual driver/patch update.

Generally this command is used as one of the advanced options during the Installation/Upgrade of the ESX host using the kickstart script (ks.cfg). You can find about it more in the online documentation for vSphere here.

Hope you will find this information useful.

Care and share.

How to install Async drivers on ESX/ESXi?

Now there are multiple methods using which you can update the driver on ESX/ESXi servers.

One of my authored article 1032936 for ESX/ESXi 4.x which grabbed the space in Top 20 articles this month discussing various methods


e.g.
Using commands esxupdate and vihostupdate or during the installation of ESX/ESXi by specifying the driver source CD


Article for updating Async drivers on ESX/ESXi version 4.x

KB 1032936

Article for updating Async drivers on ESXi 5.x

KB 2005205


Julian Wood (@julian_wood) has put up a PowerCLI script to update the drivers here.

If you have used any other methods apart form what is listed, then DO provide the feedback so that the article will get updated.

Cheers.