VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201809401-BG - Updates esx-base VIB

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Release date: September 13, 2018

Patch Category	Bugfix
Patch Severity	Important
Host Reboot Required	Yes
Virtual Machine Migration or Shutdown Required	Yes
Affected Hardware	N/A
Affected Software	N/A
VIBs Included	VMware_bootbank_esx-base_5.5.0-3.124.9919047
PRs Fixed	1833719, 1895743, 2010527, 2027063, 2078747, 2107697, 2120513, 2147702
Related CVE numbers	N/A

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5

Resolution

Summaries and Symptoms

This patch updates the esx-base VIB to resolve the following issues:

• When a Linux virtual machine configured to use EFI firmware reboots, the operating system might stop responding during a consecutive boot. This is more likely to occur upon a third or subsequent reboot and if the virtual machine is configured with at least several gigabytes of RAM. For more information, see VMware knowledge base article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52792.
• A high rate of InternalStatsCollector query tasks might cause the ESXi service hostd to run out of memory and fail.
• If an invalid advanced kernel option is queried with the method OptionManger.queryView(), this might result in a memory leak. In such situation, all subsequent requests for advanced kernel options result in more memory leaks. These leaks might eventually fail hostd with an out-of-memory error.
• The OpenSSH version is updated to 7.5p1.
• High number of event tasks, specifically multiple EventHistoryCollector tasks, might exceed the memory limit of the hostd process and make it fail intermittently.
• If you use the Managed Object Browser and run any third party security scanner, you might not see the following HTTP security headers: Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security and X-Content-Type-Options.

Patch Download and Installation

The typical way to apply patches to ESXi hosts is through the VMware Update Manager. For details, see the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager.

ESXi hosts can be updated by manually downloading the patch ZIP file from the VMware download page and installing the VIB by using the esxcli software vib command. Additionally, the system can be updated using the image profile and the esxcli software profile command. For details, see the vSphere Command-Line Interface Concepts and Examplesand the vSphere Upgrade Guide.