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Quick Tip - Listing Image Profiles From an ESXi Patch Using ESXCLI

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I was cleaning out a few of my to-do items (list just keeps getting longer everyday) this morning and there was a question that I received a few weeks back asking how to retrieve the list of Image Profiles for a given ESXi patch. This is actually quite easy and you will want to use ESXCLI.

Note: The examples shown below is using ESXCLI on the ESXi Shell, but these commands can be execute remotely as well using ESXCLI or through PowerCLI with Get-EsxCli cmdlet.

To list the available Image Profiles for an ESXi patch, run the following command (ensure you substitute the full path to your ESXi patch):

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip

To get more details on a particular Image Profile, run the following command and specify the -p for the specific Image Profile:

esxcli software sources profile get -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip -p ESXi-5.1.0-20121204001-no-tools

To install/update a specific Image Profile, run the following command with the Image Profile name:

esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip -p ESXi-5.1.0-20121204001-no-tools

If you just want to install the ESXi patch, run the following command which will install the esx-base Image Profile by default which will include everything:

esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip

To check for the Image Profile you have installed on your ESXi host, run the following command:

esxcli software profile get

Here are some additional resources for ESXi patch management that may also be useful:

2gbsparse Disk Format No Longer Working On ESXi 5.1

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I was recently made aware of an issue with my ghettoVCB script that after upgrading to ESXi 5.1, the ability to clone (or in this case backup) using the 2gbsparse disk format with vmkfstools was no longer working. The error that users were seeing was "The system cannot find the file specified." and I also confirmed this behavior by manually creating a VMDK and then trying to clone using the 2gbsparse format.

To give you some background, the 2gbsparse disk format is not a VMFS virtual disk format, it is part of the hosted desktop product (VMware Fusion, Workstation, Server & Player) disk format. This disk format was created to prevent cross-platform file system compatibility issue as pointed out in this VMware KB article. This issue does not exists on VMFS and hence this extra disk format is not necessary.

After some investigation, I found to use the 2gbsparse format in vmkfstools, you will need to load a specific VMkernel module called "multiextent". 2gbsparse was never officially supported on ESXi, you can not run a virtual machine with 2gbsparse disk format on ESXi and that is why a conversion maybe required when moving from a hosted product to ESXi. So by disabling unnecessary VMkernel modules that were not used made sense to help reduce amount of resources needed to load up. This is especially important with stateless deployments, where you want your ESXi host to load up as fast as possible.

Once you have enabled this VMkernel module, the 2gbsparse format will function again with vmkfstools. I also found that this was mentioned in the vSphere 5.1 release notes (yes, you should read the release notes)

To load the multiextent VMkernel module, run the following ESXCLI command:

esxcli system module load -m multiextent

To check whether the multiextent VMkernel module has loaded, run the following ESXCLI command:

esxcli system module list | grep multiextent

If you wish to persist this configuration after a system reboot, I found that you need to add the following command in a start-up script /etc/rc.local.d/local.sh as just setting the "enabled" flag is not sufficient for this particular VMkernel module.

localcli system module load -m multiextent

Note: We are using localcli because hostd may not be completely ready and you can either add a sleep/timer or just use localcli.

A Pretty Cool Method of Upgrading to ESXi 5.1

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I recently came across an interesting article by Andreas Peetz which shows you how to patch an ESXi host using an image profile that is directly available on VMware's online depot within the ESXi shell. I knew that VMware had online depots for use with VUM and Auto Deploy but I was not aware of this particular method, especially directly from the host.

Disclaimer: This method assumes you can install the default ESXi Image Profile with no additional drivers or packages, else you may have connectivity issue after the upgrade. If you still need to customize the ESXi Image Profile before installation, you will still need to use something like Image Builder and then upload that to your online depot.

Note: There are many ways that you can patch/upgrade your ESXi hosts, here is another article that provides more details for command-line only methods.

Before you get started, you will need to make sure that your ESXi host has the httpClient firewall rule enabled, else you will not be able to connect to VMware's online depot. To enable this, run the following ESXCLI command:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

Also make sure that your ESXi host can reach the following URL (you can specify a proxy if needed):

https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

To view the available ESXi Image Profiles, run the following ESXCLI command (use the --proxy if you need to specify a proxy to reach VMware's online depot):

esxcli software sources profile list -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

If you are able to successfully connect to the online depot, you see a list of all the ESXi Image Profiles that are available to you. You will see two ESXi 5.1 Image Profiles (these were recently published), one with VMware Tools and one without VMware Tools.

Note: Before you begin, make sure you do not have any running VMs and put your host into maintenance mode.

Let's go ahead and upgrade our ESXi 5.0 Update 1 host to latest ESXi 5.1. To install the new Image Profile, run the following command:

esxcli software profile update -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml -p ESXi-5.1.0-799733-standard

This can take a few minutes to complete depending on how fast you can pull down the Image Profile. Once it is done, you will see all the new VIBs that have been updated and you will be asked to reboot for the changes to go into effect and then you will be running ESXi 5.1! Pretty cool IMO!