Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

3.0.x

HA and ESX 3.0.x log file flooding

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VMware just released a new KB article. The article is on VMware HA and the log files it can possibly generate when restarting of a VM occurs.

The article contains an extensive description of the sympoms but the most important one is this one:

For any virtual machine that VMware HA is wrongly trying to start, it also generates thousands or tens of thousands of vmware-x.log files (one created every few minutes). Contents of each log file shows the virtual machine starting up then failing to start. Despite these logs, the virtual machines are actually pingable and running, and vm-support -x shows them as available running virtual machines on the host.

The resolution for the problem is the following:

  1. Stop and start HA on the cluster. (This stops the flooding)
  2. # find . -name ‘-*.log’ | xargs rm
    This commands removes all log files. Make sure you run this from /vmfs/volumes!

Patches for 3.5

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VMware just released 9 new patches for ESX 3.5:

  • ESX350-200901401-SG – PATCH – Security – KB 1006651 – Updates VMkernel VMX hostd. But most important fix that this patch containts definitely is: VMware ESX and ESXi 3.5 U3 I/O failure on SAN LUNs, and LUN queue is blocked indefinitely. For a full description of this issue, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008130.
  • ESX350-200901402-SG – PATCH – Security – KB 1006652 – Security Update to ESX Scripts
  • ESX350-200901404-BG – PATCH – Critical – KB 1006654 – Updates VMware Tools
  • ESX350-200901405-BG – PATCH – General – KB 1006655 – Updates VMware-esx-lnxcfg
  • ESX350-200901406-BG – PATCH – General – KB 1006656 – Updates Kernel Source and VMNIX
  • ESX350-200901407-BG – PATCH – General – KB 1006657 – Updates Pegasus
  • ESX350-200901408-BG – PATCH – Critical – KB 1006658 – Updates SATA Drivers
  • ESX350-200901409-SG – PATCH – Security –KB 1006659 – SNMP Security Update
  • ESX350-200901410-SG – PATCH – Security – KB 1006660 – Security Update for libxml2

There’s one “patch” released for ESXi (installable and embedded) 3.5:

  • ESXe350-200901401-O-SG – PATCH – Security – KB 1006661 – KB 1006662 – KB 1007058 – Firmware Update
    If you are using SRM in combination with ESX besure to read the KB1006661 cause this patch contains several fixes related to SRM.

There’s also a whole bunch of 3.0.x patches released, so if you’re still running 3.0.x besure to look into these new patches.

patches for 3.0.x released

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VMware just released a whole bunch of patches for 3.0.x, so if you’re still using 3.0.x than you should take a look here. At least three of them are related to Linux Guests! There are 6 patches for 3.0.2 and 4 for 3.0.3. Have fun, 😉

fstab modifications gone after upgrade VMware tools

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About a month ago I got an email about problems with upgrading VMware tools on a Linux VM. When upgrading VMware tools all modifications done in /etc/fstab after the VMware tools section would be deleted. I never got the chance to actually test it myself but now a KB article popped up and confirmed the bug. Apparently the engineers are working on it so expect a fix/update in the near future. Michael Wilmsen of Wilmsen Automatisering pointed me out to this bug.

ESX 3.0.3 available now!

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For those that are still using 3.0.2 and are not looking to upgrade to 3.5 U2 yet, VMware just released 3.0.3! Don’t expect new features to popup. Version 3.0.3 is mainly about compatability and patches:

Processors

Newly supported processors are:

  • Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8300 series and 2300 series processor families (collectively code-named Barcelona)
  • Dual-core Intel Xeon 5200 series processors (code-named Wolfdale)

Drivers

Upgraded drivers are:

  • igb driver version 1.0.0
  • Broadcom 5722 tg3 driver version upgraded from 3.43.to 3.58b
  • Emulex lpfc driver version upgraded to 7.3.2_vmw10

Guest Operating Systems

Newly supported guest operating systems are:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Data Center Edition
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1

Enhanced Patch and Upgrade Management

Significant improvements to the following patch management utilities:

  • esxupdate Utility – Support for super-bundle and rollup features in esxupdate.
  • Support for VMware Update Manager.

Service Console

Update for service console from RHEL3 U8 to RHEL3 U9.

Management Agents

Support for new versions of Management Agents:

  • HP Insight Manager 8.1
  • Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 5.4
  • IBM Director 5.20 Update 1

Backup Software

Support for additional backup software from third-party vendors:

  • EMC Networker Version 7.4 SP1
  • IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Version 5.5

Quality Improvements

A significant number of issues have been fixed. Some of these issues have been described in Resolved Issues in this Release.

Get it while it’s stil hot and read the complete release notes here!