ESXi 4.1 updates not appearing after patch import

[proxb]

I have a stand alone network with several ESXi servers that I need to update. I followed the instructions in this PDF: https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsp_vum_41_admin_guide.pdf (Chapter 10)

I configured the UMDS on a Windows XP machine directly connected to the internet and was successful in performing the downloading and exporting (see below for commands I ran) of the updates and metadata. When I copy the files over to a local repository on the vCenter Server (ie: C:\repository) and attempt to import the updates via vCenter , all I see are updates for ESXi 3.5 and ESXi 3.0.3.

Command I run to download and export only the host updates:

vmware-umds --set-config --enable-host 1 --enable-win 0 --enable-lin 0

vmware-umds --re-download --start-time 2011-01-01T00:00:00 --end-time 2011-06-31T:23:59:59

vmware-umds -E --export-store <repository path> --start-time 2011-01-01T00:00:00 --end-time 2011-06-31T23:59:59

I import the updates from the Patch Download Settings portion of the Configuration Tab in vCenter by using a shared repository.

I am not completely sure what I need to do in order to get the 4.1 updates to show up. Looking at the repository, I see a lot of ESX350-xxxxxxxx-UG.zip files which I assume are the updates, but nothing for 4.1.

I do see some .VIB files under hostupdate\vmw\vibs that reference 4.1 firmware. I have no idea if this is the updates that are needed by the hosts or not.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Boe

[MauroBonder]

This discussion was moved from vCenter to the Update Manager

[pcerda]

Check out the UMDS configurations.  Check the downloadConfig.xml file, and make sure the server is able to download all the patches.

Best Regards

Patricio Cerda

[proxb]

Hi pcdera,

I checked the downloadConfig.xml file and everything seems OK. I commented out the 3.x url so only the 4.x stuff would download.  When you say make sure the server is available to download all patches, are you talking about the system I have UMDS configured on to download from the internet or are you talking about the vCenter server?  I verified that the download worked and have files in the patch repository on the system hosting the UMDS.  I recently ran an export this morning and logged it to a file that is attached (output.log) to verify if everything looks OK.

Thanks!

Boe

[f10]

Hi,

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1015663 would help you in configuring UMDS to download on 4.x patches.

[pcerda]

I was talking about UMDS server.

Try to re-download the ESX/ESXi patches in the UMDS Server, but without specify any date.  Just download all the ESX/ESXi patches.

Finally, make sure the UMDS server is really downloading the binaries, and not just the metadata files.

[proxb]

Hi F10,

Thanks for the information regarding the KB article. I actually did this prior to starting my latest download attempt. Appreciate the help.

Thanks!

Boe

[proxb]

pcerda,

I am in the process of downloading all host patches now.

The only ZIP files I see, which I assume are the binaries are located under \hostupdate\  are are ESX303 or ESX350 ZIP files. The only sign of a anything related to 4.x files are located under \hostupdate\vmw\vibs\ and are all .VIB files.

I'll report back when the download has completed.

Boe

[proxb]

Looks like I got it working. Here are the steps I took to get it running:

1. I re-installed the UMDS service on the client machine directly connected to the internet.

2. Using this article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101566...I was able to only download 4.x updates.

3. I then did an export with a specified date range Jan 1, 2011 to July 1, 2011 and proceeded to burn all of the data to a DVD.

4. I uploaded all of the data from the DVD to a repository locally on the vCenter server.

5. Once that completed, I validated the url in vSphere for the shared repository and proceeded to perform a download of the patch data.

6. I was successfully able to verify that the 4.x patches were now available in the repository.

7. I did run into an issue while performing a scan for new updates on all of the hosts.

8. Looking at vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log file showed that it could not locate the csco\metadata\csco-VEM-4.1.0-metadata.zip file.

9. I copied the csco folder and subfolders from an alternate location into the current repository and the scan completed successfully.

[pcerda]

great!  Thanks for the feedback.

Best Regards