Yellow Bricks

by Duncan Epping

3i

Patches for ESX 3.5 and 3i

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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.

New ESX 3i download

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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

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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

Console connections and Getting Started tab

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When looking for the “maximum number of allowed console connections, I stumbled upon another handy option in VirtualCenter, “Edit -> Client Settings”.

  1. Set the maximum number of allowed console connections (0 to 100) to all virtual machines.
  2. Close all “Getting Started” tabs at once.