How to upgrade the vMA 5

Last week vSphere 5 Update 1 was released by VMware, along with the main products some of the SDKs and automation tools were also updated, including the vMA appliance.

As you should remember from my first post about vMA 5 the classic vma-update utility is no longer available. So to be able to update our vMA to the new version we have to use the Web UI. Following is the procedure to perform the upgrade.

First access the web interface using vi-admin user as always.

From the main screen go to the Update tab. In the Status screen click on Check Updates.

After a few seconds a message will appear showing the new update available.

Click on Install Updates and after asking for confirmation the update process will start.

Once the update process is complete the appliance will ask for a system reboot.

Go to the System tab and perform the reboot. After the reboot is done you can check the new version in the appliance console,

And in the /etc/vma-release file.

vi-admin@vma:~> cat /etc/vma-release
vMA 5.0.0 BUILD-643553

Copyright (C) 1998-2011 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.
This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and
intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more U.S.
Patent Numbers D617,808, D617,809, D617,810, D617,811, 6,075,938,
6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672, 6,725,289, 6,735,601,
6,785,886, 6,789,156, 6,795,966, 6,880,022, 6,883,095, 6,940,980,
6,944,699, 6,961,806, 6,961,941, 6,970,562, 7,017,041, 7,055,032,
7,065,642, 7,069,413, 7,069,435, 7,082,598, 7,089,377, 7,111,086,
7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149,310, 7,149,843, 7,155,558, 7,222,221,
7,260,815, 7,260,820, 7,269,683, 7,275,136, 7,277,998, 7,277,999,
7,278,030, 7,281,102, 7,290,253, 7,343,599, 7,356,679, 7,386,720,
7,409,487, 7,412,492, 7,412,702, 7,424,710, 7,428,636, 7,433,951,
7,434,002, 7,447,854, 7,447,903, 7,467,067, 7,475,002, 7,478,173,
7,478,180, 7,478,218, 7,478,388, 7,484,208, 7,487,313, 7,487,314,
7,490,216, 7,500,048, 7,506,122, 7,516,453, 7,529,897, 7,543,301,
7,555,747, 7,565,527, 7,571,471, 7,577,722, 7,581,064, 7,590,715,
7,590,982, 7,594,111, 7,596,594, 7,596,697, 7,599,493, 7,603,704,
7,606,868, 7,620,523, 7,620,766, 7,620,955, 7,624,240, 7,630,493,
7,636,831, 7,657,659, 7,657,937, 7,665,088, 7,672,814, 7,680,919,
7,689,986, 7,693,996, 7,694,101, 7,702,843, 7,707,185, 7,707,285,
7,707,578, 7,716,446, 7,734,045, 7,734,911, 7,734,912, 7,735,136,
7,743,389, 7,761,917, 7,765,543, 7,774,391, 7,779,091, 7,783,779,
7,783,838, 7,793,279, 7,797,748, 7,801,703, 7,802,000, 7,802,248,
7,805,676, 7,814,495, 7,823,145, 7,831,661, 7,831,739, 7,831,761,
7,831,773, 7,840,790, 7,840,839, 7,840,993, 7,844,954, 7,849,098,
7,853,744, 7,853,960, 7,856,419, 7,856,531, 7,856,637, 7,865,663,
7,869,967, 7,886,127, 7,886,148, 7,886,346, 7,890,754, 7,895,437,
7,908,646, 7,912,951, 7,921,197, 7,925,850; patents pending.
VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are
registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States
and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may
be trademarks of their respective companies.
vi-admin@vma:~>

The above procedure use the default VMware repository and your appliance must be able to resolve public DNS addresses and access the internet in order to download de upgrade bits.

Juanma.