Orchestrator upgrade fails with failed package dependencies error

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)

Issue/Introduction

• The upgrade process terminates with a critical error during the installation tests. 

  ... Upgrade terminated due to critical error. Follow the upgrade guide to recover the system. ...

  

• Upgrading Orchestrator fails with:  VAMI exiting with error code: 1.

• The /opt/vmware/var/log/vami/updatecli.log contains a package dependency error similar to: 
  

  10/11/2023 07:09:16 [INFO] Update status: Running installation tests
  10/11/2023 07:09:16 [INFO] Running /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/job/2/test_command
  warning: /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/package-pool/package-pool/VMware-Log-Insight-Agent-8.10.2-21113573.noarch.rpm: 
  Header V3 RSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID fdf4dc95: NOKEY
  error: Failed dependencies:
          libevent-2.1.so.6()(64bit) is needed by (installed) nfs-utils-2.3.3-2.ph3.x86_64
  10/11/2023 07:09:17 [ERROR] Failed with exit code 40704

  or:

  11/06/2026 11:04:43 [INFO] Update status: Running installation tests
  11/06/2026 11:04:43 [INFO] Running /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/job/6/test_command
  warning: /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/package-pool/package-pool/VMware-Log-Insight-Agent-8.18.4-24853441.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA512 Signature, key ID fdf4dc95: NOKEY
  warning: /opt/vmware/var/lib/vami/update/data/package-pool/package-pool/kubectl-1.30.14-1.vmware.9.fips.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 001e5cc9: NOKEY
  error: Failed dependencies:
  rpm = 4.16.1.3-21.ph4 is needed by (installed) rpm-devel-4.16.1.3-21.ph4.x86_64
  rpm-libs = 4.16.1.3-21.ph4 is needed by (installed) rpm-sign-libs-4.16.1.3-21.ph4.x86_64
  rpm-libs = 4.16.1.3-21.ph4 is needed by (installed) rpm-build-libs-4.16.1.3-21.ph4.x86_64

 

Environment

Aria Automation Orchestrator 8.x

Cause

This error typically occurs when non-standard or additional custom packages have been installed on the Orchestrator appliance.

While the above log file shows specific packages preventing the upgrade, the exact package name can vary depending on the environment's specific configuration.

 

Note that this approach is not supported. As per KB 367354 VMware best practise dictates that you do not install any additional packages on the appliances

Resolution

To resolve the issue remove any additionally installed packages that do not come packaged with the appliance and retry the upgrade.

To validate whether or not a package is included as standard a new Orchestrator appliance can be deployed on the same version and the rpm query can be leveraged:

rpm -qa |grep <packagename>

So for the example provided above:

rpm -qa |grep nfs-utils