Steps to upgrade manually the VCG database in vCenter Servers without internet connectivity

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Steps to upgrade manually the VCG database in vCenter Servers without internet connectivity

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

 

Resolution

Steps to follow:
 

1. Login to the offline vCenter using the root account and access the bash shell.
2. Run the following command:
   
   # grep 'client_' /usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/config/vvs-config.json
   
   Note the client_id and client_secret values. These are going to be used in later steps
   
   
3.  Download a copy of the VCG database. Below are two examples using curl and PowerShell:
   
   Using curl
   
   CLIENT_ID="<replace with values from step 2>"
CLIENT_SECRET="<replace with values from step 2>"
JSON=$(curl -d "client_id=${CLIENT_ID}&client_secret=${CLIENT_SECRET}&grant_type=client_credentials" -X POST https://auth.esp.vmware.com/api/auth/v1/tokens)
TOKEN=$(echo $JSON | jq -r .access_token)
curl -L -H "X-Vmw-Esp-Client: $TOKEN" -X GET "https://vvs.esp.vmware.com/v1/compatible/vcg/bundles/all?format=gz" -o vlcm-vcg-offline.gz
   
    or 
   
   Using PowerShell
   
   $CLIENT_ID="<replace with values from step 2>"
$CLIENT_SECRET="<replace with values from step 2>"
$JSON = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://auth.esp.vmware.com/api/auth/v1/tokens" -Method POST -Body "client_id=${CLIENT_ID}&client_secret=${CLIENT_SECRET}&grant_type=client_credentials"
$TOKEN = ($JSON.Content | ConvertFrom-Json).access_token
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://vvs.esp.vmware.com/v1/compatible/vcg/bundles/all?format=gz" -Method GET -Headers @{"X-Vmw-Esp-Client"="${TOKEN}"} -OutFile vlcm-vcg-offline.gz
   
   
   
   
4. Upload the vlcm-vcg-offline.gz downloaded on step 3 using an SCP client to the offline vCenter.
   
   
5. Unzip the file:
   
   gzip -d vlcm-vcg-offline.gz
   
   
6. Update the local vLCM VCG database from our offline file
   
   /usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/python/hcl/hcl_datastore.py update-offline --filePath /<path to the file>/vlcm-vcg-offline
   
   
7. Then to check:
   
   /usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/python/hcl/hcl_datastore.py information