How to revert a Stemcell in Operations Manager

Products

• VMware Tanzu Application Service for VMs

Issue/Introduction

In some cases, you may want to revert to a previous version of a Stemcell.

Perhaps you accidentally uploaded a newer version or you are having a problem with the newer version. As long as you have not gone too far forward in the process, you may be able to recover from using an incompatible Stemcell version.

Environment

Resolution

Operations Manager (Ops Manager) always uses the latest Stemcell uploaded. If you accidentally upload a Stemcell that is newer than the one you intend to use, you cannot roll back through the Operations Manager UI.

To revert to a previous version of a Stemcell, follow the below steps: 

1. Enter into the BOSH CLI.

2. Run the following command to save the cf manifest to a temp file: bosh -d <cf-deployment> manifest > manifest.yml

3. Edit the manifest file in a text editor and and search for "stemcells:". You should see something similar to the following:

stemcells:
- alias: bosh-vsphere-esxi-ubuntu-trusty-go_agent
  os: ubuntu-trusty
  version: '3586.65'

4. Update the version to the desired version and save your changes.

5. Ensure the Stemcell you want to use is available to BOSH by running the following command: bosh stemcells

Name                                      Version   OS             CPI                   CID
bosh-vsphere-esxi-ubuntu-trusty-go_agent  3586.65*  ubuntu-trusty  e286873768f61c88da9c  sc-a2c12c25-6e54-4ea1-9cdb-e0330ada5dea
~                                         3586.46   ubuntu-trusty  e286873768f61c88da9c  sc-ef2796bd-e679-4908-84ee-8ae776f86f16
~                                         3586.42   ubuntu-trusty  e286873768f61c88da9c  sc-f92ea49a-7c9d-49e4-8

6. If you do not see the Stemcell you wish to revert to, then download the desired Stemcell from network.pivotal.io and upload to BOSH using the command: bosh upload-stemcell <path-to-stemcell>

7. Once you are sure the required Stemcell is available to BOSH, run the following command to deploy the new stemcell: bosh deploy manifest.yml, where manifest.yml is the updated file from step 4.

Note: If after reverting the Stemcell you still experience problems with the foundation, your only other option may be to update to a newer version of PAS that is supported by the newer Stemcell.