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Upgrading VMware Tools and virtual hardware on multiple virtual machines (1003966)

Last Updated: 12/21/2010Categories: Total Views: 17324Language:
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Symptoms

install-upgrade-vmware-tools-simultaneously multiple-esx-hosts vmware-tools-install-upgrade-fails

Purpose

This article guides you through upgrading VMware Tools in multiple virtual machine's simultaneously. You may want to use this process after upgrading your VMware Infrastructure from an earlier version of ESX and VirtualCenter.
Upgrading is a multistage process in which procedures must be performed in a particular order:

Upgrade VirtualCenter

Upgrade ESX Server host(s) and datastores

Upgrade your virtual machines

Upgrade VMware Tools within the guest operating system.

This article provides steps you with the completion of steps three and four in the upgrade process.

Resolution

VMware recommends that you upgrade all virtual machines with the latest version of VMware Tools. A virtual machine with an older version of VMware Tools, when powered on an ESX Server 3 host or higher, may not have full network connectivity and may display incorrect connectivity information. You must have the appropriate permissions to complete an upgrade.

For VirtualCenter 2.0.x, VMware Tools can be installed on multiple virtual machines from the command line.
Note: Virtual machines must be powered off.

For VirtualCenter 2.5 and later, VMware Tools can be installed on multiple virtual machines from the Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client).

Note: Virtual machines must be powered on.

VirtualCenter 2.5 and later

To install or upgrade VMware Tools in multiple virtual machines:

Launch the VI Client and log in to the VirtualCenter Server.

Click Inventory in the navigation bar to expand the Inventory list.

In the Inventory list, select the host that contains the virtual machines you want to upgrade.

Click the Virtual Machines tab.

Select the virtual machines you want to upgrade with the new version of VMware Tools.

Note: If you are installing VMware Tools in the virtual machines, ensure that the virtual machines are powered on.

Right-click the virtual machines and choose Install/Upgrade Tools.
VirtualCenter Server provides two options to upgrade VMware Tools:

Interactive tools upgrade
Requires some interaction and requires you to reboot the guest operating system manually.

Auto tools upgrade
Upgrades tools without interaction and reboots the guest operating system, if required. Auto tools upgrade is supported for tools version ESX Server 3.0.0 and above on Windows and Linux guest operating systems.

Command line options that can be added to the Advanced field are outlined in Table 1003966-T1.

You must reboot guest operating systems to be able to use the new drivers after you install or upgrade VMware Tools in virtual machines.

Known Issues

Automatic Upgrades Cannot Be Performed for VMware Tools on Virtual Machines Running NetWare (1003058) .

Automatic VMware Tools Upgrade Does Not Upgrade to the Latest Version on Virtual Machines With Insufficient Space in the Root Partition (1003051) .

Before cloning virtual machines with customization, disable the auto upgrade option for VMware tools by deselecting the option Check and upgrade tools before each power on. After the virtual machine is cloned with customization, enable the auto upgrade option for VMware tools in the cloned virtual machine by selecting the option Check and upgrade tools before each power on

VirtualCenter 2.0.x

Requirements

Only virtual machines managed by VirtualCenter 2 can be upgraded.

Mass upgrades are available for Linux and Microsoft Windows 2000 and above.

Windows NT, Novell Netware, and FreeBSD are not supported.

The virtual disk must be on a VMFS‐3 volume.

Virtual machines must be powered off. (Linux virtual machines must be shut down, rather than powered off.)

The mass upgrade command‐line tool is installed as part of the VirtualCenter Server 2 installation, on Microsoft Windows.

Upgrading VMware Tools and virtual hardware on multiple virtual machines

Log in to your VirtualCenter Server.

Open a command prompt. For more information, see Opening a command or shell prompt (1003892) .

Change to the directory where the VirtualCenter Server is installed.

Type the vmware-vmupgrade command with your desired options:
vmware-vmupgrade.exe -u user [-p password] [-n vmname] [-h host] [-m maxpowerons] [-o port] [-t maxpowerontime] [-s] [-q]

The table below outlines the various options available:

Table 1003966-T1: Command Line Options

Option

Description

-u user

Specifies a user with sufficient privileges on the target virtual machine, including VirtualMachine.Config.*, VirtualMachine.Interact.*, and VirtualMachine.Provisioning.*

-p password

Specifies a password on the command line. If this is omitted, the tool immediately prompts for a password.

-n vmname

The name of the virtual machine to upgrade. This name corresponds to the display name of a virtual machine. Specify multiple virtual machines using multiple -n parameters. The -n option is ignored if -h is specified.

-h host

Attempts to upgrade all the virtual machines on a particular host. Fails if the specified host is not version ESX Server 3.0 or greater.

-m maxpowerons

On a particular host, power on only this number of virtual machines at a time.

-o port

Specifies the VirtualCenter Server port, if a different one from the default port 902 has been configured.

-t maxpowerontime

After the tools upgrade is scheduled on a virtual machine, the virtual machine is powered on and allowed to run through the tools installation process.

In most cases, the guest powers down the machine automatically when the process completes. This parameter allows a user to set the maximum
amount of time for a virtual machine to be powered on in case the guest is unable to power off the machine itself.

-s

Skips the tools and does only the virtual hardware upgrade.

-q

Works quietly. Does not produce status or completion messages on stdout.

Specifying Host or Virtual Machine Names

To specify a host or a virtual machine name for the vmware-vmupgrade.exe command, you must specify a path to the host or virtual machine. The path corresponds to the location of the host or virtual machine displayed in the VI Client inventory. To determine host paths, display the Hosts and Clusters view in the inventory panel. To determine virtual machine paths, display the Virtual Machines and Templates view in the inventory panel.

For example, the path for the host testserver3.eng.vmware.com is /Datacenter1/Folder1/testserver3.eng.vmware.com

For example, the path for the virtual machine vm1 is /Datacenter1/MyVMs/vm1 .

Usage Examples

The following are some usage examples for the vmware-vmupgrade command :

To upgrade a single virtual machine named myvm, in datacenter DC, in the root virtual machine folder:

vmware-vmupgrade -u user -n /DC/myvm

To upgrade a single virtual machine named vm1 in the folder My VMs, in datacenter DC, in the folder dcFolder :

vmware-vmupgrade -u user -n /dcFolder/DC/MyVMs/vm1

To upgrade two virtual machines, vm1 and vm2, both in datacenter DC, and to force all virtual machines to power off after 5 five minutes. One virtual machine is a Linux virtual machine that does not have Advanced Power Management configured, so that when the guest is shutdown, the virtual machine doesn't power off.

vmware-vmupgrade -u user -n /DC/vm1 -n /DC/vm2 -t 5

Related Information

For more information on troubleshooting VMware Tools upgrades, see Troubleshooting a failed VMware Tools upgrade (1003983).

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