"Configuration Upgrade Failure" PSOD during upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U2 or later

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

To avoid PSOD and upgrade failure.

Symptoms:

• "Configuration Upgrade Failure" PSOD during upgrade to ESXi 7.0 U2 or higher        

Configuration Upgrade Failure
Please reboot to rollback to the older version
Failed modules:
/usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradesnmpmodule.so

• The snmp upgrade plugin log found in configstore-upgrade.log shows

2022-04-01T15:14:41.856Z In(05) host-2097900 [ConfigStore:235130028032:] [2097900][/usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradesnmpconfig.so] Invoking upgrade.
2022-04-01T15:14:41.881Z In(05) host-2097900 [ConfigStore:235130028032:] [2097900][/usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradesnmpconfig.so] Invoking UpgradeConfig
2022-04-01T15:14:41.882Z In(05) host-2097900 SnmpAgentConfigImpl: trap filters are size 0s
2022-04-01T15:14:41.883Z In(05) host-2097900 SnmpAgentConfigImpl: Updated snmp.xml during bootup
2022-04-01T15:14:41.883Z Er(02) host-2097900 SnmpAgentConfigImpl: Update Daemon runtime state failed
2022-04-01T15:14:41.883Z Er(02) host-2097900 [ConfigStore:235130028032:] [2097900][/usr/lib/vmware/configmanager/upgrade/lib/libupgradesnmpconfig.so] Upgrade failed rc: 1

Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.2
VMware vSphere ESXi 7.0.3

Cause

During upgrade if "Authentication: MD5" is found in snmp config file, snmp upgrade plugin tries to remove it as MDS is not supported now. If the daemon state is 'enabled' we try to notify the daemon as well about the update. But since the daemon won't be up at this stage(upgrade) it results in SNMP upgrade plugin failure.

Resolution

This is a known issue and currently there is no resolution.

Workaround:
To workaround this issue
  1. Reboot the ESXi host to revert to the previous version.
  2. Replace weak authentication protocol (MD5) with SHA1 and reconfigure v3 users.
  3. Now perform the upgrade.

For more information refer to Configure ESXi for SNMP v3

Additional Information

Impact/Risks:
Upgrade fails with a PSOD.