VMware Infrastructure 3 Documentation

Knowledge Base, Updates Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 212009

VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 or ESX 3.5 Update 3
vCenter Server 2.5 Update 2 or vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3

Features |
Technical Papers |
Knowledge Base |
VMware Infrastructure Community |
Downloads

VMware Infrastructure 3 version 3.5 offers three server versions —
ESX, ESXi Embedded, and ESXi Installable. The documents listed on this
page cover ESX and vCenter Server. There are separate Web pages for the
ESXi Embedded / vCenter Server and ESXi Installable / vCenter Server
combinations.

The documents in this documentation set use the term ESX Server when presenting concepts, behaviors, and tasks that apply to all ESX types. When a behavior, concept, or task applies only to ESX and not to ESXi, the documents use the term ESX Server 3.

Deutsch, 简体中文, and 日本語 sites offer localized documentation for Release Notes and the main documentation set as available.

Product Name Changes in Documentation

VMware recently changed some of its product names. However, the
software, documentation titles, and documentation text continue to
refer to the affected products by their old names. For your reference,
here is a list of new and old product names.

New Product Name	Old Product Name
ESX	ESX Server
vCenter Server	VirtualCenter
VMware vCenter Update Manager	VMware Update Manager
VMware vCenter Converter	VMware Converter Enterprise for VirtualCenter 2.5

Compatibility Guides

• Learn about hardware compatibility:

         The Hardware Compatibility Lists are now available on the Web-based Compatibility Guide at
         http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility. This new format is a single point of access for all VMware
         compatibility guides. The previous PDF versions will no longer be updated. The Web-based Compatibility
         Guide provides the option to search the guides, and save the search results in PDF format.

• Learn about VMware Infrastructure compatibility:

VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrixes (PDF)

Release Notes

ESX Server 3.5 Update 3 (HTML)
VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 3 (HTML)
ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 and VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 (HTML)
VMware Consolidated Backup 1.5 (HTML)
VMware Consolidate Backup 1.1 Update 1 (HTML)

VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 3 (HTML)
VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 2 (HTML)
VMware Converter Enterprise Update 3 for VirtualCenter 2.5 (HTML)
VMware Converter Enterprise Update 2 for VirtualCenter 2.5 (HTML)

Patches & Updates

Visit the VI3 Patches & Updates page for current information and read the ESX Server 3 Patch Management Guide to learn about updating ESX Server.

Documentation

Read the documentation below to learn about installing, configuring,
and using VMware Infrastructure 3 products, including the add-on
modules available for vCenter Server. All the documents in this section
apply to ESX 3.5 Update 2 or ESX 3.5 Update 3 and vCenter Server 2.5
Update 2 or vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3. However, the title pages of
the documents refer only to ESX 3.5 Update 2 and vCenter Server 2.5
Update 2.

Main Documentation Set

Published on 7/25/08 for the following builds:

         ESX 3.5 Update 2 Build 110268 | ESX 3.5 Update 3 Build 123630
         vCenter Server 2.5 Update 2 Build 104215 | vCenter Server 2.5 Update 3

•   Learn about our main documentation set:

         Documentation Roadmap (PDF)

•   Search all the books in the set for the information you need:

         VMware Infrastructure 3 Online Library (HTML)

•   Read individual books in the set:

         Introduction to VMware Infrastructure (PDF)
         VMware Infrastructure 3 Primer (PDF, Updated 8/15/2008)
         Configuration Maximums for VMware Infrastructure 3 (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
         Quick Start Guide (PDF)
         ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter Installation Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
         Upgrade Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
         Basic System Administration (PDF, Updated 11/14/2008)
         Virtual Infrastructure Web Access Administrator’s Guide (PDF)
         ESX Server 3 Configuration Guide (PDF)
         Resource Management Guide (PDF, Updated 11/14/2008)
         Fibre Channel SAN Configuration Guide (PDF)
         iSCSI SAN Configuration Guide (PDF)
         Virtual Machine Backup Guide (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)

VMware vCenter Update Manager

         Administration Guide (PDF)
         VMware Update Manager Sizing Estimator (XLS)

VMware vCenter Converter

         Administration Guide (PDF)

Related Resources

         VirtualCenter Database Sizing Calculator for Microsoft SQL Server (Excel)
         VirtualCenter Database Sizing Calculator for Oracle (Excel)
         Setup for Microsoft Cluster Service (PDF, Updated 10/17/2008)
         Remote Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide (PDF)
         VMware Infrastructure Management Assistant Administrator’s and Developer’s Guide (PDF)
         SAN System Design and Deployment Guide (PDF)
         Guest Operating System Installation Guide (HTML | PDF)
         Virtual Machine Mobility Planning Guide (PDF)

For Developers

         VMware SDK & API Developer Resources page (HTML)

VMware, Documentation, ESXi, ESX 3.5

Setting up VMware Update Manager Download Service for Isolated Networks

Updates, VMware, VMware ESX, VMware Update Manager, VMware Virtual Infrastructure Kommentare deaktiviert

Jan 212009

VMware Communities: Setting up Vmware Update Manager Download Service for Isolated Networks

Patching Offline ESX servers with Vmware Update Manager

This is my brief guide to what I did to setup patching for isolated networks, like those in intellegence communities, etc. This is meant to help fill in some of the gaps that the documentation left in the process.

Install Update Manager Download Service

Setup a machine to be your Update Manager Download system:

* This machine must have Internet access.
* This system will require another database beyond what the Update Manager in Virtual Center uses, so you may not want to install it there.
* Also, you will need to burn CDs/DVDs or transfer files to a device
* This all being said, a workstation is a good candidate system

Install the Update Manager Download Service on the above machine. Take note of the installation folder and the folder where the downloads will be stored.

* Files are located in “umds” folder of the Virtual Center installation CD image
* Open the VMware-UMDS.exe file to install
* Select to use the local SQL 2005 Express database server

Download Current Updates

The best thing to do is setup a Windows Scheduled Task that downloads the updates automatically. The first step is to create a script to accomplish this manually then you can make it a scheduled task.

To get current downloads:

* Change to the “C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager” directory
* Run the program: vmware-umds –download (or “vmware-umds -D”)
* Get coffee! Really, the first run takes a loonngg time.

NOTE: It is possible to configure the download to only retrieve ESX host updates, Windows VM updates and/or Linux VM updates. To change which updates are downloaded use the following syntax:

* vmware-umds -S -h true | false
* vmware-umds -S -w true | false
* vmware-umds -S -l true | false

For example: vmware-umds -S -h true will d/l ESX host patches, vmware-umds -S -w false will NOT d/l Windows VM patches, etc. This can be useful if you want to verify the process but not spend time waiting for the Windows patches to download. Before running “vmware-umds -D”, disable Windows and Linux and verify that the ESX patches are downloaded successfully

Once downloads are done you need to export to a local file repository:

* Change to the “C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager” directory
* Run the program: vmware-umds -E –dest -s 2007-01-01T00:00:00 -t 2007-12-31T23:59:59
* This downloads all the patches for 2007, specify different time ranges as required.

Once exported you need to export your repository to some sort of portable media, say a DVD (most likely a DL from what I have already seen!!!)

Import Updates to Virtual Center on Isolated Network

Now that your Internet connect machine has done all the dirty work, you need to get the updates into Virtual Center’s Update Database:

* Get you update media connected to Virtual Center so it can access the files
* Change to the “C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager” directory on Virtual Center
* Run the program: vmware-updateDownloadCli.exe –update-path –config-import windows esx –vc-user

This is a very brief explanation of what to do. See these fine documents below for more stuff: