During async patching of NSX-T 3.1.3.7.4 on VCF 4.4 and newer, NSX-T host upgrade can fail with precheck error

Products

• VMware Cloud Foundation
• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

During upgrade of NSX-T through the SDDC UI, precheck fails with error:

"Checks if IPFIX was enabled: [IPFIX is enabled. Host will be rebooted during upgrade]"

Environment

VMware NSX-T Data Center
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.3
VMware Cloud Foundation 4.4

Cause

This issue occurs during asynchronous patching workflows. The NSX-T host upgrade may fail during the pre-check phase due to the nsxt-ipfix module failing to unload on the ESXi host.

nsxt-ipfix module fails to unload during the NSX-T host upgrade.

VMware NSX-T documentation indicates that this warning can be safely ignored, and the upgrade can proceed as outlined in the corresponding KB article. However, when the upgrade is initiated through VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), the workflow automatically fails upon encountering this pre-check error, preventing the upgrade from proceeding.

This behavior is addressed in VCF 4.4.1. For earlier versions, the documented workaround can be used to suppress the NSX pre-check warnings and allow the upgrade workflow to continue.

Resolution

By default, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) does not allow NSX pre-check warnings to be ignored during the upgrade workflow.

Resolution:

This issue has been addressed in VCF 4.4.1.

Workaround:

If upgrading from a version prior to VCF 4.4.1, you can suppress the NSX pre-check warnings by performing the following steps:

1. Open an SSH session to the SDDC Manager and switch to the root user:

   su -

2. Navigate to the LCM configuration directory:

   cd /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-app/conf

3. Edit the application-prod.properties file and add the following entry:

   lcm.nsxt.suppress.prechecks=true

4. Restart the LCM service:

   systemctl restart lcm

After completing the above steps, rerun the upgrade pre-checks and proceed with the upgrade as appropriate.