Moving from ESX 3.0 to ESX 3.5 Howto part III

Let’s round up some things that didn’t make it into part II. Some VMWare Update manager, VMWare tools and other stuff you might run into during the migration.

After I reinstall a host I always want to make sure all the latest patches are on it before we send it out into the big world.
1) Start VC en click on "Plugins", "Manage Plugins" 

Click "Download and install"

2) Click Install
3) After the installation is done, enable the plugin by again going into the Plugin Manager
4) Check further information on how to configure VUM (in Dutch but with great screenshots) on this page here and here maintained by my buddy Arne
The steps in short are:
- Install VUM Plugin
- Configure Scheduled download task
- Attach baseline(s) to your ESX box (and/or) vm’s
- Scan your ESX host for updates
- Install the updates (Remediate)
5) If you have DRS and HA, reconfigure and enable them on your cluster.
6) The final step in the migration process is the updating of the VMWare Tools (VMTools). Luckily VMWare simplified this hefty task (in the earlier days this required a LOT of manual work).
Schedule some downtime for the VM’s because most of them will reboot after the upgrade!

Select the VM’s you want to update by "dragging" a box around them (C&C gamers know what I mean) rightclick on your selection and click "Install/Upgrade" VMWare Tools
The screen that follows will give you some options on how you want to install the updates.

Caveats/Pitfalls
Ok, since sysadmins don’t live in a perfect world (yet), things can (and will) go wrong at some point or level.
These are some things I ran into during the upgrade:
- I was unable to find which Oracle 10 version was needed in this upgrade. Check this link FIRST for database compatibility (thanks to Bouke)
It was DURING the installation, that I received a warning that version 10.0.2.3 is required on client AND DB side. We are a bit below this version and haven’t found any big issues yet.

- I reinstalled my first host and imported it in the new VC Database. When I tried to VMotion a vm from a 3.0.2 host to the new 3.5 host, the vmotion would "hang" and break off it’s operation at 10%. I searched the VMWare forums but couldn’t find anything. Checked DNS, VMotion settings, recreated vSwitches you name it. Nothing helped.
Since this happened at the end of the day, I left the host sitting till the next day. The next morning, holding my cup of tea, I re-tried the VMotion and yippiekayee I saw the VMotion go past 10%…black magic it must be!
I ran into this issue consistently trough out my reinstallations of the hosts. The funny part was that the ESX 3.5 hosts had no problem VMotioning between each other. Luckily I was able to use my first host as kind of "gateway" vmotion host so that way I was able to reinstall all of the other hosts.

- The first time your ESX boots version 3.5.0 Update 1 you might see an error . Just wait for the login screen to pop up and press  ALT-F1, you might see an installation error of Pegasus during the end of the boot process. More information on how to solve this can be found here

- The last thing I’m still struggling with is a very nasty bug in DRS. Simply put, this issue makes your VM’s eat more CPU then they should.
I did the diagnostic test mentioned in the kb article but results were inconclusive.
The thing that made me look on the VMWare forums was the fact that random processes in a VM would eat CPU. For example, I had 1 of 2 domain controllers do this while the other did not exhibit this behavior while the software configuration is identical. More information+workaround on this issue can be found here.
I’ve currently put the VMOverheadGrowthLimit to 4. (anyone know why this is set to 5 before VC 25 Update 1 and set to 4 AFTER VC 2.5 Update 1?)
Hopefully this will be completely fixed in update 2. If you have some additional info feel free to contact me.

So…that’s it for now. We’ve come to end of the upgrade adventures of VMWare. See you next same time, same channel!

If this post helped you out, help me out keeping this site alive and visit some of my sponsors on the left or right.. Thanks..!