The VCF Download Tool (VCFDT) is the recommended utility for downloading binaries for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) deployments and upgrades. However, because Express Patches (EPs) are versioned and released independently for each VCF component, determining the latest installation or upgrade binaries for a specific VCF release currently requires additional effort when using VCFDT.
The VCF Installer UI currently provides the best user experience by automatically determining the latest supported version of each component for a given VCF release (for example, 9.0.2 or 9.1.0) by parsing the productVersionCatalog.json manifest.
Using a similar approach, I created a small script called Get-VCFLatestComponents.ps1 with the assistance of AI that allows you to specify the target VCF release and whether you are performing an installation or upgrade. The script then generates the appropriate VCFDT commands to download the latest supported binaries.
The script requires the productVersionCatalog.json which can be downloaded using VCFDT (e.g. vcf-download-tool metadata download) or from the Broadcom Support Portal (BSP) and then specify the following:
- DepotStore - The full path to where you want the binaries to be download to
- CredentialType - Either ActivationCode or DownloadCode
- CredentialFile - The full path to either the activation or download code file
- BaseVersion - 9.0.2 or 9.1.0
- Type - Either INSTALL or UPGRADE
Here is an example of running the script to generate the download binary commands for the latest VCF 9.1.0 release with latest EPs:
./Get-VCFLatestComponents.ps1 -PVC /Users/lamw/productVersionCatalog.json -DepotStore /Volumes/Storage/Software/VCF-LATEST -CredentialType ActivationCode -CredentialFile /Users/lamw/vcf_activation_code.txt -BaseVersion 9.1.0 -Type INSTALL
You can now copy the generated VCFDT commands and run them sequentially or placed them inside of a PowerShell or Shell script and have it run in the background 😎
An enhancement has already been planned for VCFDT, where a future maintenance release will support downloading the latest install/upgrade binaries for a VCF release, including all applicable Express Patches, using a single command. Until then, I hope this script saves you a few minutes and removes some of the guesswork when downloading VCF binaries.
Thanks for the comment!