Enabling vSphere Replication 8.5+ or 9.x on a vSphere Lifecycle management (vLCM) managed cluster.

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

Commencing from vSphere Replication 8.5.0.3, the HBR Agent VIB will no longer be installed automatically on hosts managed by vLCM clusters. However, vSphere Replication will continue to install the HBR Agent VIB on all standalone hosts and hosts, which are a part of non-vLCM managed clusters. This change has been implemented to prevent vSphere Replication from interfering with vLCM’s operations. For hosts not part of vLCM clusters it will continue to use VUM to install the HBR Agent VIB.

To utilize the vSphere Replication LWD traffic encryption for any replication, as well as to be able to replicate VMs with VM encryption enabled, which run in vLCM clusters, you must manually install, upgrade and uninstall the HBR Agent Component.

vSphere Replication 8.5.0.3 and vLCM

Environment

VMware vSphere Replication 8.x

VMware vSphere Replication 9.x

Cause

Starting with vSphere Replication 8.5.0.3, you can use vSphere Life Cycle Manager (vLCM) with a manual workaround. For more information, see the VMware vSphere Replication 8.5.0.3 Release Notes. 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. You must apply the workaround or switch off the network encryption. 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. If you find the depot.zip, 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

You will find the Solutions folder 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, you need to manually trigger remediation in the VC Lifecycle Manager UI again.
 

Manually Upgrade the HBR Agent Component

Whenever you upgrade the vSphere Replication appliance (until you reach vSphere Replication 8.8) you would need to download the new version of the HBR agent component, import it in vLCM UI and then go through each and every vCLM 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 you no longer need vSphere Replication, LWD traffic encryption or replicating VMs with VM encryption in a vLCM cluster, you can uninstall the HBR Agent Component:

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, you must make an SSH connection 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 on your system.