Unable to install Zerto VRA on the ESXi host.

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• While enabling Zerto VRA on the cluster it failed. We will observe below error in the Zerto appliance. 
  • One or more errors occurred. (VRA deployment failed. This might be caused by insufficient compute or storage resources. If the issue persists, contact Zerto Support.)
• From /var/run/log/vmkernel.log 
  • YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ In(182) vmkernel: cpu0:3721955 opID=########Config: 761: "ExecInstalledOnly" = 0, Old Value: 0, (Status: 0x0)
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ In(182) vmkernel: cpu11:3729585)UserMem: 7732: mmap denied: execInstalledOnly is enabled: file '/tmp/zdriver_ESX_80U2.o' is not installed

Environment

• VMware vSphere 7.X
• VMware vSphere 8.X

Cause

• The ESXi host has a setting VMKernel.Boot.execInstalledOnly set to true.
• This setting prevents the zdriver vib to install correctly using live installation.

Resolution

Refer the below steps to change the VMKernel.Boot.execInstalledOnly to false. 

• From vCenter UI
  1. Login to the vCenter UI.
  2. Navigate to the host object -> Configure Tab -> Advanced Settings
  3. Click the Edit button in the upper right
  4. Update the VMKernel.Boot.execInstalledOnly value to 'false'
  5. Reboot the ESXi host.
  6. Initiate the Installation of Zerto VRA
     
     
• From ESXi Command line method.
  1. Take SSH of the ESXi host and login with root credentials. 
  2. Run the below command change the VMKernel.Boot.execInstalledOnly to false

     • esxcli system settings encryption set --require-exec-installed-only=F

  3. Verify the change by running the below command. 

     • esxcli system settings encryption get

  4. Note: Confirm that Require Executables Only From Installed VIB displays false.
  5. To save the setting, run the following command:

     • /sbin/auto-backup.sh

  6. Reboot the ESXi host. 
  7. Initiate the Installation of Zerto VRA

Additional Information

• Zerto Known Issues
  • When running with Zerto versions older than 10.0_U1 or 9.7U4, Zerto does not support enabling the VMkernel.Boot.execInstalledOnly boot option (kernel flag) on ESXi. If you are running vSphere 8.0 or later, this flag must be manually turned off before deploying Zerto.