VMware ESX Server 3.5, Patch ESX350-200802401-BG: Updates to VMware-hostd-esx

Symptoms

1. When using VirtualCenter to perform an ESX Server host rescan to discover new LUNs, the VirtualCenter agent (vpxa) crashes and the following message is logged because the secondary host cannot be reached:
   
   An error occurred while communicating with the remote host.
   
   Note that the rescan operation is successful in this case and that the VirtualCenter agent (vpxa) is automatically restarted.
   
   
2. Adding or reconfiguring a virtual machine SCSI device might crash hostd.
   
   
3. While performing simultaneous rescans and hot addition or hot deletion of RDMs (or other such operations that involve RDM creation, opening, or deletion), the procedure sometimes fails. The system reports the exceptions concurrent modification and file not found in /var/vmware/log/hostd.log. After applying the patch, the system might still report the concurrent modification exception. If this occurs, retry the operation. You should not see the file not found exception after applying the patch.
   
   
4. Drives are enumerated in reverse order on external storage in VI Client.
   
   
5. The system becomes unresponsive.
   
   
6. Licensing an ESX Server 3.5 host with more than two processors fails when attempting to use host-based licensing regardless of how many licenses are available. The ESX Server software installs properly, but the server fails to leave the unlicensed mode and instead runs in evaluation mode.
   
   
7. The effect of this issue on VMotion events can be unpredictable. It is difficult to determine when this issue is the cause of the problem. In most cases, no error messages are logged.

Deployment Considerations

• Patch bundle ESX350-200802403-BG must be installed prior to installing this patch. The esxupdate utility will check to ensure ESX350-200802403-BG is installed before proceeding with installation of this patch.
  
  
• Restart hostd after installing this patch. Log in to the service console as root and run the command:
  
  service mgmt-vmware restart

Patch Download and Installation

To automatically download and install patches on your ESX Server 3.5 hosts, use the VMware Update Manager. For more information, see the Update Manager Administration Guide at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_vum_10_admin_guide.pdf .

To update ESX Server 3.5 hosts from the command line of the service console, download the most recent patch bundle from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches_35.html and install it using the esxupdate utility. For more information about using esxupdate, see the ESX Server 3 Patch Management Guide at http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_esxupdate.pdf .