vSphere Lifecycle management (vLCM) support for vSphere Replication
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vSphere Lifecycle management (vLCM) support for vSphere Replication

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Article ID: 337149

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Updated On:

Products

VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

vSphere Replication 8.8 and higher versions are now compatible with vLCM clusters. However, vSphere Replication will continue to install the HBR Agent VIB on all standalone hosts and hosts that are a part of non-vLCM managed clusters. For hosts that are not part of vLCM clusters, it will continue to use VUM to install the HBR Agent VIB.

 

HBR agent auto installation will place the ESXi hosts in Maintenance Mode, installation is managed by vLCM from vSphere Replication 8.8 and higher versions. By design, the Solution Apply logic always uses Maintenance Mode when upgrading a solution on ESXi host. vLCM will upgrade HBR agent after receiving auto install task from vSphere replication appliance, it will put the host in Maintenance Mode before proceeding with upgrading the solution.



NOTE:
If using vSphere Replication 8.5 (EOGS Oct 2023), 8.6 and 8.7, VMware by Broadcom recommends upgrading to 8.8 or higher to be compatible with vLCM. 

Environment

VMware vSphere Replication 8.x
VMware vSphere Replication 9.x

Cause

Starting with vSphere Replication 8.5.0.3, vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM) can be used with a manual workaround. If vLCM and vSphere Replication run in the same data center and if the above workaround is not applied, replications that use a network encryption will become inactive because vLCM will remove the hbr-agent used for that network encryption. The workaround or switching off the network encryption must be applied. Replications that do not use the network encryption are unaffected.

vSphere Replication 8.8 adds support for VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager-managed hosts and clusters.

Resolution

Instructions to download HBR Agent Component

There are 2 ways of downloading the HBR Agent Component from the vSphere Replication Appliance: 

1. Via API - 

Go to https://vr_appliance FQDN/IP address:8043/vlcm/vmware-hbr-agent.zip & download the VMware-ESXi-8.0.2-22517424-hbragent.zip. If this does not contain the solutions metadata folder, follow step 2. 

2. Via WinSCP - 

Login into VRMS using putty & go to this location. Locate the depot.zip and download it using WinSCP. 

root@VRMS [ /opt/vmware/hbr/vib ]# ls -l
total 59136
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20194451 Sep 28  2023 VMware-ESXi-8.0.2-22517424-hbragent.zip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20090149 Sep 28  2023 VMware-HBR-Agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424-depot.zip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20190426 Sep 28  2023 vmware-hbr-agent-8.0.2-0.0.22517424.i386.vib

The Solutions folder is found under vmw-ESXi-8.0-metadata. 

NOTE: API method has been removed from version 9.0

Manually Install the HBR Agent Component

  1. Follow the instructions to download HBR agent component
  2. Import the downloaded HBR Agent Component into VC Lifecycle Manager UI.
  3. For all vLCM clusters:
    1. Manually add the HBR Agent Component to the related cluster images.
    2. Trigger remediations to install it.

Note: If a new host is added to a vLCM managed cluster that already has the HBR Agent Component installed in its images, remediation in the VC Lifecycle Manager UI must be manually triggered again.

Manually Upgrade the HBR Agent Component

When upgrading the vSphere Replication appliance (until vSphere Replication 8.8 is reached) the new version of the HBR agent component must be downloaded and then imported via the vLCM UI and then go through each and every vLCM cluster, update the image with the new component version and manually remediate it.

  1. Follow the instructions to download HBR agent component 
  2. Import the newly downloaded HBR Agent Component into VC Lifecycle Manager UI.
  3. For all vLCM clusters that have an older version of the HBR Agent Component:
    1. Add the new HBR Agent Component to the related cluster images manually (note that this will automatically replace the old one).
    2. Trigger remediations to upgrade it.

Manually Uninstall the HBR Agent Component

If vSphere Replication is no longer needed, LWD traffic encryption or replicating VMs with VM encryption in a vLCM cluster, the HBR Agent Component can be uninstalled:

  1. Remove the HBR Agent Component in the VC Lifecycle Manager UI.
  2. Trigger remediation in order to uninstall it from all the hosts in the vLCM managed cluster.

NOTE: For any host that leaves its vLCM managed cluster and is no longer present in any other vLCM managed cluster, an SSH connection must be made to the host and manually uninstall the HBR Agent Component by using the following command

$ esxcli software vib remove --vibname=vmware-hbr-agent


Workaround:

For vSphere Replication 8.6

As vSphere Replication 8.6 is compatible with vCenter 7.x  to bridge the gap before upgrading vCenter to 8.0 the workaround is to use the VIB from vSphere Replication 8.5. Please check the attachment in this article or follow the instructions to download the latest HBR agent component from the vSphere Replication appliance.

For vSphere Replication 8.7

1. Follow the instructions to download HBR agent component.
2. Import the downloaded HBR Agent Component into VC Lifecycle Manager UI.

Import Updates to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

For vSphere Replication 8.8

This issue is resolved for vSphere Replication 8.8 

Side Note:  Port 9084 is required to install VIBs open from source VR to target ESXi.

Additional Information

To check whether the VIB is installed post remediation, SSH to the related host and run the below command:

$ esxcli software vib list | grep hbr
vmware-hbr-agent               7.0.3-1.0.18622853                   VMware  VMwareCertified   2021-09-29

NOTE: The output described above may vary slightly between systems.

Attachments

vmware-hbr-agent.70u3 get_app
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