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ESX Server 3.0.1, Patch ESX-2257739: vmnics Operational Status, Storage Limitations and vmfs2 to vmfs3 Migrations

Details

Security Issues

This patch fixes an issue where setting an invalid MAC address within a virtual machine's guest operating system can cause a crash of the ESX Server host and possibly incur a denial of service to occur on the ESX Server host.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2007-1668 to this issue.

Resolved Issues

This patch also addresses the following issues:

  • Fixes an issue where snmp query (snmpwalk -v1 -c public localhost ifEntry) or ifconfig command output shows the operation status of vmnics to be always down, or not running.
  • ESX Server 3.0.1 hosts are currently able to have a maximum of 256 LUNs of up to 2 TB each. Limitations to storage addressing created problems addressing storage greater than 70 TB. The issue has been resolved so that ESX Server 3.0.1 can address up to 512 TB.
  • Fixes an issue where a migration upgrade using VMotion from ESX Server 2.x to ESX Server 3.0.1 causes the ESX 3.0.1 host to crash.

Solution

Applicability

This patch is for ESX Server 3.0.1 only. For the related patch for ESX Server 3.0.0, refer to http://kb.vmware.com/kb/3713510.

Download Instructions

Download and verify the patch bundle as follows:

  1. Download patch ESX-2257739 from http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/vi3_patches.html.
  2. Log into the ESX Server service console as root.
  3. Create a local depot directory.

    # mkdir /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-2257739.tgz

    The md5 checksum output should match the following:

    e49ae9be1c51fef5db641e0654a43117 ESX-2257739.tgz

  7. Extract the compressed tar archive.

    # tar -xvzf ESX-2257739.tgz

  8. Change to the newly created directory, /var/updates/ESX-2257739:

    # cd ESX-2257739

Installation Instructions
Note: All virtual machines on the host must be either shut down or migrated using VMotion before applying the patch. A reboot of the ESX Server host is required after applying this patch.

Once 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

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

# esxupdate -r file://<directory>/ESX-2257739 update

For example, if the host is called depot:

# esxupdate –r file:///depot/var/updates/ESX-2257739 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-2257739 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.

Keywords

CVE-2007-1668;esx301;esxpatch

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