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Updating handshakeTimeoutMs setting for ESXi 7.x & 8.x using configstorecli

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With the introduction of the ESXi Configuration Store back in vSphere 7.0 Update 1, all ESXi configuration changes should be managed using either the configstorecli for an individual ESXi host or leveraging the new vSphere Configuration Profiles (VCP) for scale with vCenter Server.

For certain ESXi hostd configurations such as configuring the handshakeTimeoutUs property, which has changed locations from several locations including /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml and /etc/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg to now /etc/vmware/rhttpproxy/config.xml in the latest ESXi 8.x release, it can be challenging to figure out the correct configstorecli syntax.

Having spent some time playing with the configstorecli, I was able to quickly help a customer recently who was looking to update the handshakeTimeoutUs property for ESXi 7.x and I wanted to make it easy for folks to find the syntax for both ESXi 7.x and 8.x.

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Tips for navigating and downloading from new Broadcom Support Portal

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The Broadcom Support Portal (BSP) is most likely a new interface for many including myself after the planned VMware by Broadcom Day 2 Transition, which was completed on May 6th, 2024. The BSP is used for more than just support, it is the single place for managing your entitlements/licenses, software downloads, trials, security advisories, knowledge base articles and engaging with the community.

Tip: I have also put together a list of Useful Links for VMware by Broadcom Day 2 Transition in case you have not seen this handy resource.

Note: I know some users are still reporting entitlement issues, you can reach out to support or contact your account team who may be able to assist if you are still unsure. I know several users reported entitlements were finally in their account towards the end of last week, so it may just take a bit longer than expected. I have also seen some of the links on BSP throw 404, but after refreshing it once more, it loads and this might be due to some residual issues with our new CDN provider, CloudFlare.

It definitely took me the whole week to get familiar with the BSP, especially knowing where and how to find things, which was not always the most intuitive. I have been compiling some notes and various tidbits that I have learned over this past week and I wanted to share this in case it can help our customers, partners and colleagues to quickly ramp up on using the BSP.

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Quick Tip - Automating cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic configuration for ESXi Kickstart with USB

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To prevent ESXi from PSOD'ing when an Intel Hybrid Consumer CPU is detected with non-uniform capabilities, a workaround can be applied to ignore the uniformity miss-match which is needed before the ESXi installer fully boots up and also after the initial reboot.

For those looking to fully automate this process using ESXi Kickstart using USB as an example, there are two places where the kernel boot option must be added:

1) The first is the EFI\boot\boot.cfg file on the ESXi installer media (e.g. USB) where you will append to the kernelopt line as shown in the snippet below:

bootstate=0
title=Loading ESXi installer
timeout=5
prefix=
kernel=/b.b00
kernelopt=ks=usb:/KS.CFG cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE
.....

2) The second must be added to the %post section of your ESXi kickstart, which will update the first ESXi bootbank's boot.cfg and ensure the kernel option is passed to ESXi when it reboots after installation:

%post --interpreter=busybox

sed -i '/^kernelopt=/ s/$/ cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE/' /vmfs/volumes/BOOTBANK1/boot.cfg