Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

Patches for ESX 3.5 and 3i

VMware just released 9 patches for ESX 3.5 and 1 for ESX 3i! You can download them here for 3.5 and here for 3i.

The patch for ESX 3i fixes the following:

  • ESX Server 3i hosts using more than two processor sockets cannot be licensed when using host-based licensing.
  • VMware Virtual Center does not properly record the number of processors on Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor 7200 series based hosts.
  • An issue with the BCM5709 firmware where ping requests sometimes fail after loading and unloading the bnx2 driver.
  • An issue with the bnx2 driver where a device using the bnx2 driver fails to connect to the a 100 Mbps network during the network autonegotiation period after system boot.

The patches for ESX 3.5 contain the following:

  • Update to the bnx2 Driver
  • Security Update to the Samba Package
  • Security Update to the util-linux Package
  • Security Update to the Perl Package
  • Security Update to the openssl Package
  • Daylight Saving Time Update
  • vmkernel-vmnix Update for the bnx2 Driver
  • Intel Xeon Processor 7200 Series Based Servers Licensing Issues
  • Multi-processor Licensing Issues, VMotion Assert Failure

I’m glad VMware released this fixes, now I can finally test the Update Manager for my ESX Hosts.

ESX Host not reconnecting after adding SCSI card

When I added an extra SCSI card to my ESX 3.5 test system I could not get it to reconnect again with VirtualCenter. After a close inspection I noticed that vmnic0 did not exist anymore(esxcfg-nics -l), it got renamed to vmnic1. Because of that my vSwitch0 did not have a NIC linked to it anymore. I linked the new vmnic1 to my vSwitch0(esxcfg-vswitch vSwitch0 -L vmnic1) and everything was up and running again. I’m glad this didn’t happen in a production environment with several vSwitches and portgroups, than again it is possible to rename them again by manually editing the /etc/vmware/esx.conf file. There’s a knowledge base article on this behavior on the VMware support site, I noticed it a couple of weeks ago an now I witnessed it. Definitely not the first place I would normally look. I hope VMware can fix this glitch, although I can fully understand why this happens.

Xenserver patchmanagement

One of the things that Xenserver, still lacks is decent patch management. VMware solved this in ESX3.5/VC2.5 with the “update manager” which is an awesome tool for updating your ESX Hosts. (Yes it can be used for Windows/Linux and applications, but it needs to be refined in my opinion.) Patching Xenserver is a manual job, but not for long. Citrix just announced a new feature for the upcoming Xenserver release, pool-wide patchmanagement.

Pool-wide patch management has been integrated into the product, and, in conjunction with a wizard in XenCenter, will allow you to:

  • Check the Citrix XenServer website for updates
  • Download any pending updates to your XenCenter system
  • Choose which servers in your managed pools you wish to apply the patches to
  • Put each server in maintenance mode (with their VMs kept online on another server via XenMotion)
  • Apply the patches
  • Bring the server back online and move VMs back to it automatically

All in a single guided process.

There should be a beta available soon. It’s good to see Citrix is bringing Xenserver up to speed. This competition/rivalry will eventually make all products better! Read it at the source.

New ESX 3i download

I just noticed that VMware released a new version of ESX 3i on the 10th of January. The current build number is “70348” and the previous was “67921”. It’s just a minor update:

EULA Update—The reissued version of ESX Server 3i Installable incorporates an updated, corrected version of the EULA.
Licensing Fix—The reissued version of ESX Server 3i Installable lets you apply appropriate host-based licenses to servers that have more than two CPUs.

Support on ESX 3i and HA

I never noticed this, but during the configuration of HA in my testlab I received some weird errors. I just could not enable it on the ESX Server that ran ESX 3i, and I’m pretty sure DNS works fine. Today I received an email about 3i and support on HA, which states:

Support for VMware High Availability (HA) is experimental and expected to be fully supported in an upcoming patch or update.

You can read more about it in this PDF about 3i and HA. But is it me or is almost every single interesting new feature experimental. I hope that VMware will support all the new features when the patches/updates are released