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Release Notes for VMware vCenter Lab Manager 4.0.3

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Last Document Update: March 18, 2011

VMware vCenter Lab Manager 4.0.3 | March 18, 2011| Build number: 4.0.3.1318

VMware vCenter Lab Manager is an application that provides a rapid provisioning portal and image library management system. This system can be used to automate the setup, storage, and teardown of multimachine software configurations as well as provide a framework for service transition and release management activities.

Lab Manager leverages VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter to provide virtual infrastructure resources to multiple teams, projects, and geographies from a central location.

Using Lab Manager, you can create a shared virtual machine library that stores commonly used configurations and provides users with self-service access to these configurations for application development, testing, support, training, software demonstrations, release management, and more. Lab Manager administrators control access rights, storage quotas, and deployment policies.

These release notes contain the following sections:

New Features

This section describes the new features and performance enhancements in Lab Manager 4.0.3.

Support for VMware vSphere 4.1 Update 1

Lab Manager 4.0.3 supports ESX Server 4.1 Update 1 and vCenter Server 4.1 Update 1.

Support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (x86)

Lab Manager 4.0.3 supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (x86).

System Requirements

Lab Manager 4.0.3 supports the following:

  • ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 5
  • ESX/ESXi 4.0
  • ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 1
  • ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 2
  • ESX/ESXi 4.0 Update 3
  • ESX/ESXi 4.1
  • ESX/ESXi 4.1 Update 1

Do not mix ESX/ESXi 3.5, 4.0, or 4.1 hosts in the same cluster.

You can use the hosts in this list with vCenter Server 4.0, vCenter Server 4.0 Update 1, and vCenter Server 4.0 Update 2. To use Host Spanning private networks, you must have an Enterprise Plus license.

For details of all requirements and procedures to set up the product, see the Lab Manager 4.0 Installation and Upgrade Guide.

For information on hardware compatibility for ESX/ESXi 3.5, ESX/ESXi 4.0, or ESX/ESXi 4.1, see the guides on hardware compatibility.

Upgrading to Lab Manager 4.0.3

You can upgrade to Lab Manager 4.0.3 from Stage Manager 1.x, Lab Manager 3.x, Lab Manager 4.0, Lab Manager 4.0.1, or Lab Manager 4.0.2. If you are currently using Lab Manager 2.x, you must first upgrade to Lab Manager 3.x before you upgrade to Lab Manager 4.0.3. You can check the Lab Manager or Stage Manager version using the About option in the Web console.

Before you can upgrade Lab Manager, you must upgrade the vCenter Server. See the Lab Manager 4.0 Installation and Upgrade Guide for more information.

Supported upgrades:

Version Build Number
Lab Manager 4.0.2 4.0.2.1269

Lab Manager 4.0.1

4.0.1.1233
Lab Manager 4.0 4.0.0.1140
Lab Manager 3.0.2 3.0.2.56
Lab Manager 3.0.1 3.0.1.378
Lab Manager 3.0 3.0.0.2063
Stage Manager 1.0.1 1.0.1.1970
Stage Manager 1.0 1.0.0.1561

To upgrade from Lab Manager 4.0, Lab Manager 4.0.1, or Lab Manager 4.0.2, run the Lab Manager 4.0.3 installer directly over Lab Manager 4.0, Lab Manager 4.0.1, or Lab Manager 4.0.2. If there are virtual machines deployed on two or more hosts using host spanning, you should first undeploy these virtual machines and then upgrade to Lab Manager 4.0.3.

To upgrade Lab Manager from any other version of Lab Manager or Stage Manager, follow the procedures in the Lab Manager 4.0 Installation and Upgrade Guide.

After you upgrade, you must also upgrade the Lab Manager agent on each ESX host:

  1. Log in to the Lab Manager Web console.
  2. In the left pane, click Resources.
  3. On the Hosts tab, move the pointer over the host name and select Upgrade Agent.
  4. Repeat these steps for each host.

Refer to the known issues related to upgrades.

Known Issues

This section describes known issues in this release.

Lab Manager on Microsoft Windows Server 2008

  • If you use a browser on the localhost in Windows Server 2008, the URL is not automatically redirected from http to https. For example, http://localhost on a Lab Manager machine does not work, so you must type https://localhost.

  • Deploying or undeploying a virtual machine fails in a fenced and partially deployed configuration. For more details, see KB 1035448.

Upgrade Issues

You may face the following issues when upgrading:

  • When upgrading from Lab Manager 4.0 to Lab Manager 4.0.1, if you face issues on roles, right, and vCenter, see KB 1020528.
  • When upgrading from Lab Manager 4.0 to Lab Manager 4.x, after adding an object, such as a table, a view, a function, a stored process, see KB 1033275.
  • The pre-check for .NET 2.0 SP1 or higher does not work. For more details, see KB 1031409.
  • When upgrading from Lab Manager 3.x to 4.x, if you face issues on roles, rights, and vCenter, see KB 1033249.

Pre-check fails with .NET prerequisite error when installing or upgrading Lab Manager

If .NET 4.0 is installed on Lab Manager, you must uninstall .NET 4.0, install or upgrade Lab Manager, and then reinstall .NET 4.0. For more information, see KB 1031409.

Certain operations might be unavailable after upgrading from Stage Manager 1.x or Lab Manager 3.x

After you upgrade the Lab Manager server, but before you launch the Lab Manager Web console, clear the cache of your Web browser to resolve this issue.

Customized sysprep.inf files are not preserved after upgrading

Lab Manager 4.x stores Microsoft Sysprep files in a different location than the earlier versions of Lab Manager. If you have custom sysprep.inf files from an earlier Lab Manager installation, you can manually copy them to the new location.

For example, you can copy a custom sysprep.inf file that you created in Lab Manager 3.x for Windows 2003 (64-bit) from C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Lab Manager\Tools\CustomizeGuest\Windows\Sysprep\Win2k3_64 to C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Lab Manager\Tools\CustomizeGuest\Windows\Sysprep\Win2k3_64

Upgrading, repairing, or uninstalling Lab Manager might overwrite or delete a custom security certificate

When you install and configure a custom security certificate on the Lab Manager Web server and then upgrade to Lab Manager 4.0.2, run the Repair command from the Lab Manager 4.0.1 installer, or uninstall Lab Manager, the installer might overwrite or delete that security certificate with the default Lab Manager certificate.
You must replace the Lab Manager certificate with your custom certificate after the upgrade.

Before you start, repair, or install an upgrade, you should make a backup of the certificate. You can restore the certificate after the upgrade.

Thin Provisioned Virtual Hard Disk Issues

Exporting a virtual machine template with a thin disk converts it to a thick disk

If you export a virtual machine or virtual machine template that includes a thin provisioned virtual hard disk to an SMB share, the export process converts the disk to thick format.

Virtual machine template properties report a virtual hard disk as thick format

If you create a clone of a virtual machine template with a thin provisioned virtual hard disk and then view the properties of the virtual machine template, Lab Manager reports its disk as thick format. However, the template's base disk remains as thin-provisioned and all the clones you create from the template retain the advantages of thin provisioning.

System administrators cannot view certain Lab Manager objects in an organization

When system administrators view workspace configurations, library configurations, network templates, virtual machine templates, or media files from within an organization, the drop-down menu listed below do not display all Lab Manager objects available to them:

  • Configurations in Other Organizations
  • Library Configurations in Other Organizations
  • Network Templates in Other Organizations
  • VM Templates in Other Organizations
  • Media in Other Organizations

Workaround: To view all available Lab Manager objects, a system administrator must be in the Global organization.

Guest customization fails if the configuration machine name contains a period

If the name of a configuration machine contains a period (.), guest customization fails.

IP Forwarding Conflicts

Using IP forwarding or DHCP servers in unfenced virtual machines or templates might cause problems with Lab Manager networking.

Workaround: Disable IP forwarding and DHCP servers in all unfenced virtual machines and templates.

Sample virtual machine template and configuration are not available

When you install Lab Manager, the installation includes a sample virtual machine template (ttylinux-4-ESX3) and a sample configuration (Sample Configuration). If Lab Manager cannot prepare any ESX host during installation, these sample files are not installed.

Lab Manager Web console page shows an empty box in Mozilla Firefox 3.6 on Linux

Some versions in Firefox 3.6 series removes executable permissions on files that are extracted from the XPI plugin binary (see http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2010/01/22/broken-executables-in-extensions-in-firefox-3-6). The console plugin does not load correctly and the console page appears blank.

Workaround: Browse to the console plugin installation folder at
/<Firefox_profile_folder>/extensions/VMwareMKSNPRTPlugin@vmware.com/plugins/ and run the chmod 755 * command to manually enable permissions on the files of that folder.

Using Mozilla Firefox on Linux to access the Lab Manager Web console might cause problems with the console plugin

There are a number of possible issues and solutions:

  • In Firefox on Linux, if error messages appear when you try to use a virtual machine console, you might not have all required libraries installed.
    Workaround: For RHEL 64-bit, you should install compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3 on the setup (ideally using yum, which also installs libstdc++.so.5), and for Ubuntu, go to http://packages.debian.org/stable/base/libstdc++5 and install the missing library.
  • Firefox might report that it can not install the plugin (Cancelled -227).
    Workaround: Create a directory named plugins in the $HOME/.mozilla on the client machine. Log in to Lab Manager and install the plugin. Restart Firefox.

  • Firefox might report an error similar to the following: LoadPlugin: failed to initialize shared library /root/.mozilla/plugins/libmks.so [libexpat.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory].
    Workaround: Create a soft link to libexpat.so.

Lab Manager does not support serverless binding to an LDAP server

Lab Manager does not support serverless binding. The Lab Manager User's Guide includes information about using serverless binding, but the information is incorrect.

Resolved Issues

This section describes resolved issues in this release.

Storage lease maximum set correctly when using SOAP APIs

Configurations that are deployed using the ConfigurationCheckout, ConfigurationCapture, or ConfigurationClone methods now will use the storage lease maximum. This fixes the issue where storage lease was always set to Never Expires when using one of these methods.

Lab Manager reports 64-bit host as 32-bit

This issue has been resolved in this issue.

Lab Manager support for SUSE 11.x

Lab Manager 4.0.3 supports 32-bit and 64-bit SUSE 11.x.

Installing Lab Manager on Microsoft Windows Server 2008

You can install Lab Manager on Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit).

Refreshing directory size for a disabled datastore

In the VM Datastore Usage page, when you click Refresh Disk Space an alert appears notifying you that a datastore is disabled and the directory size was not refreshed. You must enable the affected datastore and refresh for the correct directory size. For example, if you have four datastores and one of them is disabled, the other three should be refreshed even if the alert appears.

Full cloning of thin disks

The issue where full clone of virtual machine or virtual machine template is converting a thin provisioned disk to thick disk is resolved in this release. Now, full cloning of thin disk keeps the disk as a thin disk.

Knowledge Base Articles

This section lists the VMware Knowledge Base articles published in this release. You can click the appropriate link or go to the VMware Knowledge Base and search using the article number.