Getting "An esxupdate error exception was caught:" when trying to push the HBR agent vib to the ESXi Hosts.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• The vSphere replication appliance is unable to push the HBR agent VIB to the underlying ESXi Hosts. 
  
  
• Port 8043 is open from the vCenter or vCenter proxy (in case the vCenter Server is using proxy) to the VR Appliance.
  
  
• Port 443 is open between the VR appliance and ESXi Hosts where the VIB is supposed to be installed.
  
  
• Manual installation of the HBR agent VIB directly on the Host via esxcli fails too.
  
  
• Per the inter-operability matrix, the VR, VC and ESXi Host are all compatible with each other.
  
  
• In the /var/run/log/esxupdate.log of the ESXi Host, you see that the VIB installation fails during the self-validation phase where it compares the installed VIB to the current image profile. You notice that the version of the image profile doesn't match the version of the ESXi Host.
  
  esxupdate: 3701199: imageprofile: INFO: Adding VIB VMware_bootbank_vmware-hbr-agent_<build and version> to ImageProfile (Updated) <Current image profile of the ESXi Host>
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR: An esxupdate error exception was caught:
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR: Traceback (most recent call last):
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/usr/sbin/esxupdate", line 222, in main
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:     cmd.Run()
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esx5update/Cmdline.py", line 153, in Run
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 851, in InstallVibsFromSources
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:     inst, removed, exitstate = self._installVibs(curprofile,
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 1097, in _installVibs
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:     exitstate = self._validateAndInstallProfile(
esxupdate: 3701199: esxupdate: ERROR:   File "/lib64/python3.8/site-packages/vmware/esximage/Transaction.py", line 1256, in _validateAndInstallProfile

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi
VMware vCenter Server
vSphere Replication Appliance
Site Recovery Manager

Cause

The version of the hbr-agent VIB isn't compatible with the image profile of the ESXi Host. This is because even though the Host shows up on version "n" the underlying image profile isn't updated and therefore is on an "n-1" version. To check and confirm the same, run the below set of commands

esxcli system version get

esxcli --server=<server_name> software profile get

In the ideal circumstances, the version details should be the same for both the commands.

Resolution

The affected ESXi Host needs to be updated/upgraded with the correct image profile. Refer the following Broadcom doc on the same- https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/8-0/esxi-upgrade-8-0/upgrading-esxi-hosts-upgrade/how-to-upgrade-hosts-by-using-esxcli-commands-upgrade/upgrade-or-update-a-host-with-image-profiles-upgrade.html

 

Additional Information

A major difference in the version of the Host and its image profile is mostly due to the ESXi upgrade/update being carried out using the "esxcli software vib" commands. Starting with ESXi 8.0 Update 2, upgrading or updating ESXi using the commands "esxcli software vib update" or "esxcli software vib install" is no longer supported. Refer the following kb article on this- https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/343840/patching-esxi-host-using-command-line.html