Upgrade of VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 9.x fails with error "unable to upgrade the SRM to the version"

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

 

• When attempting to upgrade VMware Site Recovery Manager (e.g., from 9.0.2.x to 9.0.4.x or 9.0.5.x), the operation fails immediately.

• The UI displays the error message: unable to upgrade the SRM to the version.
  
  

• DNS server ordering may differ between the Source (Old) and Destination (New) appliances.

• The Destination appliance fails to resolve the Source appliance's FQDN during the initial handshake.

 

Environment

 

VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 9.x
VMware vSphere Replication (if applicable)

 

Cause

This issue is caused by environmental prerequisites not being met during the upgrade handshake:

1. DNS Resolution Failure: The new (destination) appliance cannot resolve the FQDN of the source (old) appliance, or the DNS response is too slow, causing a handshake timeout.

2. Account Expiration: The admin account on the source appliance may be expired.

3. Time Skew: Significant time drift exists between the appliances.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, verify the appliance health and enforce name resolution locally.

Step 1: Verify Source Appliance Health

1. SSH into the Source (Old) SRM appliance as root.

2. Verify the admin account is not expired:

   Bash

    

   chage -l admin
   

   • If expired, reset the password or expiry date.

3. Verify time synchronization:

   Bash

    

   date
   

   • Ensure the time matches the Destination appliance and NTP is active.

Step 2: Configure Static Name Resolution

1. SSH into the Destination (New) SRM appliance as root.

2. Backup the current hosts file:

   Bash

    

   cp /etc/hosts /etc/hosts.bak
   

3. Edit the hosts file:

   Bash

    

   nano /etc/hosts
   

4. Add a static entry for the Source appliance at the end of the file in the following format:

   Plaintext

    

   <Source_IP_Address>  <Source_FQDN>  <Source_Shortname>
   

   • Example: 192.168.10.20 srm-source.example.com srm-source

5. Save the file.

6. Retry the upgrade procedure from the SRM Appliance Management Interface.

Additional Information

 

• Ensure that port 443 and port 9086 are open between the Source and Destination appliances.

• Once the upgrade is complete, the static entry in /etc/hosts can be removed if DNS is functioning correctly for the new instance.