ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-1000077: Update to Host Agent

Symptoms

The following symptoms might be seen in systems without this patch:

• While creating a snapshot of a virtual machine, if the snapshot gets corrupted due to some reason, reverting to the snapshot crashes the ESX Server host management agent. An error message similar to the following gets logged in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log : SNAPSHOT:Unable to find all files for testvm-000001.vmdk
• Deleting the snapshot of a virtual machine fails in the following scenario: Create a virtual machine that has two disks with identical names on separate datastores. Take a snapshot of the virtual machine. Deleting the snapshot fails with errors similar to the following:
  • Error in the virtual machine's uuid/VM-name/vmware.log : vmx| SNAPSHOT:GetConsolidateList failed 21

  • Error in the hostd logs: Failed to do Snapshot op: Error: The virtual disk is used multiple times hostd pulls this error message out of a foundry callback its snapshot callback.

Impact

This patch resolves the symptoms discussed above and improves patch management activities on all ESX Server hosts. Command line usage of the tool has not changed, but custom scripts and third-party utilities might be affected by these changes.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

1. Download patch ESX-1000077 from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html.
2. Log in to the ESX Server service console as root.

3. Create a local depot directory.

   # mkdir -p /var/updates

   Note: VMware recommends that you use the updates directory.

4. Change your working directory to /var/updates.

   # cd /var/updates

5. Download the tar file into the /var/updates directory.

6. Verify the integrity of the downloaded tar file:

   # md5sum ESX-1000077.tgz
   
   The md5 checksum output should match the following:
   
   3d2117536bcc2e8132aa02efcb7cc219 ESX-1000077.tgz

7. Extract the compressed tar archive:

   # tar -xvzf ESX-1000077.tgz

8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-1000077:

   # cd ESX-1000077

Installation Instructions

After you have downloaded and extracted the archive, and if you are in the directory you created above, install the update using the following command:

# esxupdate update

To run esxupdate from a different directory, you must specify the bundle path in the command:

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-1000077 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate -r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-1000077 update

During the update process, logs appear on the terminal. You can specify the verbosity of esxupdate logs by using the -v option as shown below.

# esxupdate -v 10 file://<directory>/ESX-1000077 update

For more information on using esxupdate, refer to the Patch Management for ESX Server 3 tech note at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_esxupdate.pdf.