VUM 6.5 “Cannot download patch definitions” via UMDS 6.5 Work Around

My nested vSphere lab environment does not have the access to the Internet (there is no physical network adapter as the uplink on the lab port group). To update and patch the ESXi host using vSphere Update Manager (VUM), I installed Update Manager Download Service (UMDS) on a Windows Server VM with dual NICs - one for Internet, another for the lab port group. Use the UMDS to download the update, configure IIS as the web server for the update repository, and configure VUM to use the http share repository. It worked fine in vSphere 6.0 and 6.2.

Recently I upgraded the lab environment to vSphere 6.5. The vCenter Server Appliance and ESXi hosts are upgraded to 6.5 successfully.

vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 bundles with VUM. VUM no longer requires a Windows Server. For UMDS, it can be installed on a Windows or Linux server. Since I already have a Windows server for UMDS. I continue using it instead of setting up a Linux server. But UMDS can’t be upgraded from the previous version to 6.5.

I uninstalled UMDS 6.0 and SQL Server 2012 Express on the server, and installed UMDS 6.5 with SQL Server 2012 Express from the ISO. I used the UMDS 6.0 repository folder for UMDS 6.5 and configured UMDS to download the host update only. Since IIS is already set up and I used the same repository folder, no change is needed in IIS. UMDS 6.5 successfully downloaded the update files from VMware.

I configured the VUM 6.5 to use the IIS shared repository. VUM validated the URL successfully. However, when I clicked “Download Now” button in VUM, I got the “Cannot download patch definitions” error.

Troubleshooting

• Verify the UMDS URL is accessible
  • enter http://umds-server/umds/version.txt in a web browser
• Look for ERROR in the VUM log file
  • SSH to vCSA
  • cd /var/log/vmware/vmware-updatemgr/vum-server
  • grep ERROR vmware-vum-server-log4cpp.log
  • found the following error in the log
  • Failed to download metadata zip file: http://umds-server/umds/hostupdate/vmw/vmw-ESXi-6.5.0-metadata.zip
• Check the repository folder in the UMDS server, there is no vmw-ESXi-6.5.0-metadata.zip file under hostupdate\vmw

Solution

• A similar issue happened in vSphere 5.5 (KB2061622)
• I can’t find a patch available for ESXi 6.5 yet, but I can apply the similar work around by removing <metadata> reference for vmw-ESXi-6.5.0-metadata.zip in
  hostupdate\vmw\__hostupdate20-consolidated-metadata-index__.xml
• Now the download patch definition is successful when I click “Download Now” button in VUM
• However, running UMDS again will re-add the vmw-ESXi-6.5.0-metadata.zip reference, and VUM will fail to download the patch definition
• This may be a bug in vSphere 6.5 (like vSphere 5.5). Hope VMware can fix in the next update