Knowledge Base

During a LUN recovery, VirtualCenter Server Agent crashes with a HostCommunication error message similar to the following:
  { [#7] dynamicType = <unset>,
  [#7] msg = "An error occurred while communicating with the remote host."
  [#7]
  }
   The HostCommunication error message is logged in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log.

When LUN rescans are in progress, hot addition and deletion of LUNs on virtual machines as Raw Device Mappings (RDMs) might fail with concurrent modification and file not found      exceptions.

Virtual machine level permissions might get deleted on restart of the ESX Server host or a restart of the mgmt-vmware service on the ESX Server host. 
The following error message might be displayed in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log.
 
[2007-10-03 05:35:45.715 'Vimsvc' 3076448384 info] Loading authorization data from /etc/vmware/hostd/authorization.xml
[2007-10-03 05:35:45.758 'Vimsvc' 3076448384 error] Removing invalid permission 553: unknown entity
[2007-10-03 05:35:45.798 'Vimsvc' 3076448384 error] Removing invalid permission 554: unknown entity 

Deployment Considerations

To address the issue of hot addition and deletion of LUNs on virtual machines as Raw Device Mappings (RDMs), you must install ESX-1003508  and  ESX-1003509 to complete the fix. Run service mgmt-vmware restart on ESX Server.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

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

7.      Extract the compressed tar archive:

# tar -xvzf ESX-1003508.tgz

8.      Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-1003508:

# cd ESX-1003508

Installation Instructions

After you download and extract the archive, and if you are in the directory that you previously created, use the following command to install the update:

# esxupdate update

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

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-1003508 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate -r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-1003508 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-1003508 update

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