Why am I asking an ESX question on a Cisco Community. Plain and simple...Cisco and Cisco folks support VMware better than VMware support does.
I am also going to risk the whole supported vs. unsupported discussion.
My root question> Has anyone update an existing custom image used for Auto Deploy (or VUM) with patch releases from VMware.
My scenario and explanation.
UCSM 2.2(6c) with 4 Chassis; 28 blades (B200 M3 / M4 mix) 100% virtualized on ESXi 5.5U3b using Auto Deploy Nexus 5k.
I started using Auto Deploy and ESXi 5.5U3b when I migrated off of the VM-FEX tech that was just not working for us and was a road block to patching.
I built a custom image using Image Builder based on the Cisco Custom OEM base bundle for ESXi 5.5U3b. I then added the correct FNIC/ENIC driver and vShield vibs. All worked well and has actually been more stable without the VM-FEX.
Several months and a security audit/scan later. ESXi 5.5U3b is flagged. Need to patch to build #### or another. The last official OEM Cisco supported image is a year+ out of date.
The custom image building and adding / removing a vib or two was not a big deal. Now I am faced with updating the custom image in the same way but find the task a bit more challenging. i.e. a lot more than two-three vibs and dependencies I may not be aware of.
The ESXi55U3_ver3 profile below is the current working image built on the OEM bundle. I have cloned this profile to ESXi55U3_P10_ver4. The other profiles are from the offline bundle depot for patch 10.
Is there a way to (basically) patch a custom image ESXi55U3_P10_ver4 with all of the updated vibs from ESXi-5.5.0-20161204001-stan[dard]
PowerCLI C:\> Get-EsxImageProfile
Name Vendor Last Modified Acceptance Level
---- ------ ------------- ----------------
ESXi-5.5.0-20161204001-no-t... VMware, Inc. 12/9/2016 12... PartnerSupported
ESXi-5.5.0-20161204001-stan... VMware, Inc. 12/9/2016 12... PartnerSupported
ESXi55U3_ver3 Cisco 10/27/2016 7... PartnerSupported
ESXi55U3_P10_ver4 Cisco 10/27/2016 7... PartnerSupported
ESXi-5.5.0-20161201001s-sta... VMware, Inc. 12/9/2016 12... PartnerSupported
ESXi-5.5.0-20161201001s-no-... VMware, Inc. 12/9/2016 12... PartnerSupported
I doubt that ESXi-5.5.0-20161204001-stan[dard] as all of the correct vibs that are included with the Cisco OEM download. So I dont think I can simply use this as a base and add the FNIC/ENIC vShield vibs like I did to the Cisco Custom OEM.
Is there a way to update using VUM and export it back out that I am not aware of. (if so, why would anyone use Image Builder in the first place)
Thoughts?
Thanks!
