After upgrade of hosts using vCLM images, the host GUI for all hosts in the cluster is returning a 404 error

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After using vLCM with a custom cluster image to upgrade ESXi hosts, the hosts' browser GUI is no longer available.

Environment

VMware ESXi 8.x

Cause

The cluster image contained an issue where the VMware Host Client had been removed from the components.

Resolution

Manually install the esx-ui vib from the ESXi offline depot bundle found in the Broadcom Support Portal Downloads site.

1. Upload the offline ESXi depot zip file to a datastore local to the host.
2. Connect to the ESXi host via SSH as root.
3. Run the command:

   esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/<Datastore>/<depotfile> -n esx-ui

4. Update the host image in the cluster and remove the VMware host Client exception.