vmkping and ramcheck Commands Fail in ESX Server 3.0.2 Update 1 or ESX Server 3.0.2 with Patch Bundle ESX-1001907 Installed

The commands vmkping and ramcheck fail in ESX Server 3.0.2 Update 1 or ESX Server 3.0.2 with patch bundle ESX-1001907 installed.

What products are affected?

ESX Server 3.0.2 Update 1 (new installation or upgrade from a previous version of ESX Server).

ESX Server 3.0.2 patch bundle ESX-1001907 (after installing patch ESX-1001907 on ESX Server 3.0.2).

What is the impact and symptom of this issue?

The vmkping command is a utility to help identify possible VMkernel network mis-configurations. The ramcheck command is a utility to run memory diagnostics while ESX Server is running.

Execution of the vmkping or ramcheck command in the Service Console fails with the following error message:

syscall version mismatch (compiled: 0x7616c4e3, kernel: 0x50f63116)

No other system utilities are affected. Additionally, ESX Server stability and reliability are not jeopardized.

What is the root cause of this issue?

VMware-esx-apps-3.0.2-61618.i386.rpm should have been included in the patch bundle ESX-1001907. The ISO and upgrade tarballs contain the ESX Server 3.0.2 GA version of this RPM. Instead, they should have contained the VMware-esx-apps-3.0.2-61618.i386.rpm version.