NSX-T 4.2.4 Manager/Edge appliances fail to install or upgrade due to missing RDSEED support on unsupported CPU or incompatible EVC configurations

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

• During new installations or upgrades to version 4.2.4, NSX-T appliances (NSX Manager and Edge) may become unresponsive or stuck in a reboot cycle.
• This behavior occurs if the RDSEED instruction set is not available to the appliance.
• NSX-T Manager or Edge console hangs during boot.
• Errors reported:

  post power on task failed... return status Issuing post_power_on failed to complete in time.

• Upgrade UI reports: Upgrade Agent on Edge node is unreachable.
• Environment alerts show "BGP Down," "Cluster Degraded," or "MPA Connectivity Down."
• You may be unable to login using admin/audit users; root login may work.

Environment

• NSX 4.2.4
• vSphere clusters with EVC baseline: Intel "Haswell" (L6) or earlier, or AMD Opteron™ "Steamroller" (B3) or earlier

Cause

• NSX 4.2.4 appliances require the RDSEED CPU instruction set for entropy during initialization.
• This instruction is missing on legacy hardware or masked by unsupported EVC baselines.

Resolution

This issue is resolved in VMware NSX 4.2.4.1, available at Broadcom downloads.

If you are having difficulty finding and downloading software, review the Download Broadcom products and software KB.

 

Workaround:

To work around this issue, update your environment to support the RDSEED instruction set.

1. Verify RDSEED Support: Run the following command on the NSX appliance to confirm if the instruction is available: cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep rdseed If no output is returned, the instruction is missing or masked.
2. Update EVC Mode (EVC-enabled clusters):
   
• Select the Cluster in vCenter and navigate to Configure > Configuration > VMware EVC.
• Click Edit.
• For Intel, select Intel® "Broadwell" Generation or later.
• For AMD, select AMD Zen Generation or later.
3. Hardware Migration (Unsupported Hardware):
   
• If physical CPUs do not support RDSEED, migrate appliances to supported hardware. Refer to the Broadcom Compatibility Guide.
4. Power Cycle Appliances:
   
• Shut down the guest OS of each appliance one at a time.
• Power on the appliance to allow it to initialize with the new CPU features. For Managers, perform this one node at a time to maintain cluster quorum.

Note: If Edge nodes were redeployed and appear as orphaned VMs in vCenter inventory, use the vCenter Managed Object Browser (MOB) to run the UnregisterVM method or follow KB 424037.

Additional Information

For more details on EVC levels, see Broadcom ERROR: The target host does not support the virtual machine’s current hardware requirements.