Remotely Updating VMware - Best Means to Do This?
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@scottalanmiller said:
You'll want to find out what you are updating too. Is it a PXE boot, local hard drives, individual USB sticks, etc. There are several different options and not all are visible remotely.
I highly doubt it's PXE boot, there is only one datastore on this server with a total capacity of 3.59TB, and I'd guess that ESXi is probably installed on a flash drive or SD card, but I don't know that for sure. Is there any way to find this out remotely, or do I need to ask?
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I would ask. Because even if you know that it is USB boot, you can't detect if there is a second USB "mirror" that you can't see that is there in case of failover. That is how NTG's is set up. One USB stick and one SD card. You have to update both, manually. But you update one, test, then update the other. That way you have a rapid fallback in case there is a problem.
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@scottalanmiller said:
I would ask. Because even if you know that it is USB boot, you can't detect if there is a second USB "mirror" that you can't see that is there in case of failover. That is how NTG's is set up. One USB stick and one SD card. You have to update both, manually. But you update one, test, then update the other. That way you have a rapid fallback in case there is a problem.
Ok, I can check on this. I need to call this client for another ticket anyways, so that works out.
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Also make sure DC1 points to itself for DNS otherwise it might take a LONG time to come back up.
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Ok, so good news and bad news (maybe). Good news is that his system is already up-to-date. He is running the vCenter Server Appliance as a VM on the ESXi host itself, which has a "Check for Updates" option you can just click, and it was up-to-date. Last patched near the end of October with the 5.5 Update 2b update. However, it seems strange to me that the vCenter Server Appliance VM is running on this host. The ESXi host itself is .9 but the management VM is .8. It just seems like a weird setup to me. Oh, and @scottalanmiller , I was unable to find out where his ESXi install is. He says he doesn't know of any SD card or flash drive, but I would have a hard time believing it would be any other way. Then again, anything is possible.
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In a setup like this without in house, experience virtualization people, you would expect them to have installed on the drive array. Not because it is best practice, but because it is what happens by default if you don't do anything special and just start installing.
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vCenter would be expected to be on the host as it is the only one. There is nowhere else to run it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
vCenter would be expected to be on the host as it is the only one. There is nowhere else to run it.
Yeah, that's true. It just felt weird. The guy seemed to have no concept that the .8 he connects to with the client was not actually the hypervisor, but a management tool for it. He also seemed to not know what a hypervisor was...
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Very few people do. Even in IT it is not well understood.
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