Managing IOFilters in a cluster with auto-deployed stateless caching enabled hosts

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Any IOFilter operation (install/upgrade/uninstall) on a cluster with stateless hosts will make the stateless hosts non-compliant to the hosts profile.
• You see the error: “The host's current cache is not equivalent to the booted image

Environment

VMware vSphere 6.5.x

Resolution

To resolve this issue, maintain consistency between the booted image and the cached image while performing any of the operations (install/upgrade/uninstall).

Install

1. Install IOFilter on the cluster normally. At this point, you will see the non-compliancy issue.
2. Clone the image in the image profile of the host and include the vib in it.
3. Create a deploy rule with the newly created image profile and activate it to the hosts.
4. Reboot the hosts from the newly created image.

Upgrade:

1. Upgrade the IOFilter on the cluster normally. At this point, you will see the non-compliancy issue.
2. Clone the image in the image profile of the host and replace the older version of the vib with the newer version.
3. Create a deploy rule with the newly created image profile and activate it to the hosts.
4. Reboot the hosts from the newly created image.

Uninstall:

1. Uninstall IOFilter on the cluster normally. At this point, you will see the non-compliancy issue.
2. Clone the image in the image profile ​​​​​​​of the host and remove the vib.
3. Create a deploy rule with the newly created image profile and activate it to the hosts.
4. Reboot the hosts from the newly created image.

Note: For stateless hosts in which system caching is not enabled, it is still recommended to keep the image profile and cluster consistent as a good practice. However, it is not mandatory and will not cause non-compliancy error.