VMware

VMware ESX Server 2.5.2 Upgrade Patch 3 (for 2.5.x Systems)

Released 1/27/06

TAR File

This patch is for ESX Server 2.5.x and addresses the following issue:

This patch fixes a timing issue in the LSI Logic MegaRAID driver shipped with ESX 2.5.x. This issue causes ESX Server systems using LSI Logic MegaRAID controllers to become unresponsive when storage management agents are installed on the service console.

VMware has seen this problem on Dell non-blade systems when storage management agents are installed on the service console. However, the issue may also be triggered by other applications that communicate directly with internal MegaRAID firmware. See knowledge base article 2025 for more information.

This patch will also apply the updates contained in ESX Server 2.5.2 Upgrade Patch 1 and ESX Server 2.5.2 Upgrade Patch 2, as well as updating the system to ESX Server 2.5.2.

Applicability

This patch is an ESX Server 2.5.2 patch, but can be applied to ESX Server 2.5 or 2.5.1. Applying this patch to an ESX Server 2.5 or 2.5.1 installation will upgrade it to ESX 2.5.2. Please make sure that one of these versions is installed before applying the patch. Run vmware -v to display version and build information for your system.

Important Notes

After updating your system, if you are using persistent bindings with the qla2300_604 or qla2300_607 QLogic drivers, you must manually modify the pbindings file. For details, see knowledge base article 2005.

Installing the Update

Note: VMware recommends backing up your ESX Server installation before installing this patch.

This update requires you to boot your server into Linux mode to perform the upgrade. When you are prompted to reboot at the end of the upgrade, the installer will restart your system to run ESX Server.

  1. Power off all virtual machines and shut down your server.
  2. Restart your system.
  3. At the LILO Boot Menu, select the option appropriate for your system.
    • For a boot-from-SAN installation, select esx-san-safe.
    • For all other installations, select linux-up.
  4. Log in as root into the ESX Server service console, in Linux mode.
  5. Download the tar file into the temporary directory /tmp on the service console.
  6. Change your working directory to /tmp.
  7. Verify the integrity of the package:
    # md5sum esx-2.5.2-20193-upgrade.tar.gz

    The md5 checksum output should match the following:
    03382218b9ab555c1bf1f8604e34d9b3 esx-2.5.2-20193-upgrade.tar.gz

  8. Extract the compressed tar archive:
    # tar -xvzf esx-2.5.2-20193-upgrade.tar.gz
  9. Change to the newly created directory /tmp/esx-2.5.2-20193-upgrade:
    # cd esx-2.5.2-20193-upgrade
  10. Run the installer:
    # ./upgrade.pl
  11. The system updates have now been installed. A reboot prompt displays:
    Reboot the server now [y/n]?

    12. This update will not be complete until you reboot the ESX Server. If you enter N, to indicate that you will not reboot at this time, ESX Server displays the warning message "Please reboot the server manually. Your virtual machines will not run properly until this is done." If you see this message, you must manually reboot the server to complete the driver update.

  12. At the reboot prompt, enter Y to reboot the server.