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ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-2158032: ESX Server System Crashes During Virtual Machine Migration on AMD Opteron Servers

The following issues with VMotion migrations require a patch to the VMkernel:

Customers using VMotion to hot migrate virtual machines among servers with AMD Opteron processors might experience a VMkernel crash (PSOD) on the source server after a virtual machine is migrated between servers with AMD Opteron processors.
This patch fixes an extreme case in migration, in which the destination server sends a checkpoint reply to the source when the source is not expecting one. The source's TCP receive buffer slowly fills with unread data, slowing down migrations and eventually causing the VMotion migration to fail.

This patch is for ESX Server 3.0.1 only. Refer to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/5465286 for related fixes for ESX Server 3.0.0.

The issues described above are fixed by ESX Server 3.0.1 patch ESX-2158032 in the following ways:

The patch causes VMkernel to insert lfence instructions at the appropriate places to ensure proper ordering and to prevent the kernel crash when migrating between AMD Opteron-based servers. All customers using AMD Opteron processors should apply this patch.
The patch also ensures that both the source and destination are prepared, whether or not a reply is sent (replies are always sent for critical cases). The source’s TCP receive information is read, and the buffer does not fill. VMotion migrations proceed normally.

Proceed as follows to extract the patch:

Log into the ESX Server service console as root.
Create a local depot directory.

# mkdir /var/updates

Note: VMware recommends that you use the updates directory.
Change your working directory to /var/updates.

# cd /var/updates
Download the tar file into the /var/updates directory.
Verify the integrity of the downloaded tar file:

# md5sum ESX-2158032.tgz
The md5 checksum output should match the following:

c688275383addb789af1885ef4632b5f ESX-2158032.tgz
Extract the compressed tar archive.

# tar -xvzf ESX-2158032.tgz
Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-2158032:

# cd ESX-2158032

Note: The patch requires you to reboot the ESX Server host.

If you are in the directory you created above, install the update using the following command:

# esxupdate update

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

# esxupdate -r file:<directory>/ESX-2158032 update

For example, if the host is called depot, use the command:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-2158032 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 -r file:<directory>/ESX-2158032 update

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

esxpatch;esx301

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