Host Becomes Non-Compliant After Upgrade with a Vendor Custom ISO in vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM)

Products

• VMware vCenter Server
• VMware vSphere ESX 8.x

Issue/Introduction

After upgrading an ESXi host using a new vendor-specific custom ISO (e.g., from Dell, HPE), administrators may find that the host is flagged as "non-compliant" by the vSphere Lifecycle Manager (vLCM). In this scenario, the host (PAP490D) was successfully upgraded to the correct ESXi version (8.0.u3e-24674464) but failed its vLCM compliance check.

The issue was verified by comparing the software components on the non-compliant host with those on a known-good, compliant host (PAP490h) using the esxcli software component list command.

Environment

vCenter 8.x

Cause

The root cause of this compliance mismatch is that the vLCM image for the cluster was not updated to include the new and updated OEM driver components that were installed by the latest vendor customized ISO. Hardware vendors regularly release ISOs that bundle specific, certified drivers for their servers.

This comparison revealed a clear discrepancy: the new custom ISO had installed different, often newer, OEM driver versions (e.g., Broadcom-bcm-mpi3 version 8.11.1.0.0.0-1OEM) than what was defined in the existing vLCM image, which expected an older or standard VMware component (8.8.1.0.0.0-1vmw).

When the host was upgraded with this new ISO, it installed these updated components. Because the software on the host no longer matched the software defined in the vLCM image, vLCM correctly flagged the host as non-compliant.

Resolution

The solution is to update the vLCM image to match the new "golden standard" established by the vendor's customized ISO. This is achieved by editing the image and manually adding the specific OEM components that are now installed on the upgraded host.

Steps:

1. In the vSphere Client, navigate to the Lifecycle Manager.
2. Go to the Image section for the relevant cluster.
3. Click EDIT to modify the image.
4. In the image editor, go to the Components section.
5. Use the filter to find and select each of the required OEM drivers (e.g., Broadcom-bcm-mpi3, Broadcom NetXtreme-E, qlogic-fc-hba, etc.) with the exact versions that were installed by the new ISO. You may need to deselect older versions if they are present.
6. Save the updated image.
7. Run a compliance check again on the host(s); they should now report as compliant with the updated image.

This procedure aligns the vLCM's definition of "compliant" with the actual software installed by the certified vendor ISO. It effectively establishes a new, correct baseline for the cluster, ensuring that all hosts can be consistently managed against this updated standard.