VMware Virtual Appliances and customizations to operating system and included packages

Products

• VCF Operations/Automation (formerly VMware Aria Suite)
• VMware NSX
• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESXi
• VMware Live Recovery
• VMware HCX
• VMware Cloud Director
• VMware Cloud Director Availability - Disaster Recovery 4.x

Issue/Introduction

This article outlines Broadcom's recommendations and policies on VMware virtual appliances and customizations to the operating system and/or included packages.

VMware virtual appliances are bundled with an OS and an application.  Broadcom maintains and supports this entire bundle “OS and Application” including upgrading OS subcomponents and patching security vulnerabilities per the Broadcom product lifecycle policy support phase dates specified in the Broadcom Product Lifecycle.

Resolution

Broadcom does not support any modifications or customizations to the underlying operating system and packages included in a VMware-branded virtual appliance.  This includes adding, updating, or removing of packages, utilizing custom scripts within the operating system of the appliance, changing or updating the Virtual Machine hardware version of the virtual appliance, creating local OS users, and updating the version of VMware Tools used within the virtual appliance.  All VMware virtual appliances are thoroughly tested and qualified based on the components and versions included, as well as hardened to the best of the vendors ability using best practices for the industry. 

Updating or changing any components is unsupported and may result in unexpected behavior of the system.

If security issues are identified to affect a supported Broadcom product, or the operating system of an appliance, Broadcom will release a patch to address the issues.  Do not install patches supplied by other vendors.

In situations where an appliance has been modified by the customer, Broadcom reserves the right to request all modifications be reverted and that the issue be reproduced on the base release that was originally provided.

 

Affected Products included but not limited to (All versions):

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSAN
• VMware NSX
• VMware Cloud Foundation Automation
• VMware Cloud Foundation Operations
• VMware Cloud Foundation Operations for Networks
• VMware Cloud Foundation Operations HCX
• VMware Cloud Director
• VMware Data Services Manger
• VMware AVI Load Balancer
• VMware vDefend Advanced Threat Prevention

Additional Information

Upgrading the hardware version or VMware Tools on vCenter Server

Japanese language KB: VMware 仮想アプライアンス、OS、および同梱パッケージのカスタマイズについて