Lifecycle Management polls the VMware depot to access install and update bundles. If you do not have internet connectivity in your VMware Cloud Foundation system, you can use the Bundle Transfer Utility to manually download the bundles from the depot on your local computer and then upload them to the SDDC Manager appliance.

When you download bundles, the Bundle Transfer Utility verifies that the file size and checksum of the downloaded bundles match the expected values.

Prerequisites

  • A Windows or Linux computer with internet connectivity for downloading the bundles.
  • The computer must have Java 8 or later.
  • A Windows or Linux computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance for uploading the bundles.
  • To upload the manifest file from a Windows computer, you must have OpenSSL installed and configured.
  • Configure TCP keepalive in your SSH client to prevent socket connection timeouts when using the Bundle Transfer Utility for long-running operations.
Note: The Bundle Transfer Utility is the only supported method for downloading bundles. Do not use third-party tools or other methods to download bundles.

Procedure

  1. Download the Bundle Transfer Utility on a computer with internet access.
    1. Log in to VMware Customer Connect and browse to the Download VMware Cloud Foundation page.
    2. In the Select Version field, select the version to which you are upgrading.
    3. Click Drivers & Tools.
    4. Expand VMware Cloud Foundation Supplemental Tools.
    5. Click Download Now for the Bundle Transfer Utility.
  2. Extract lcm-tools-prod.tar.gz.
  3. Navigate to lcm-tools-prod/bin/ and confirm that you have execute permission on all folders.
  4. Copy the Bundle Transfer Utility to a computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance and then copy the Bundle Transfer Utility to the SDDC Manager appliance.
    1. SSH in to the SDDC Manager appliance using the vcf user account.
    2. Enter su to switch to the root user.
    3. Create the lcm-tools directory. 
      mkdir /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools
    4. Copy the bundle transfer utility file (lcm-tools-prod.tar.gz) that you downloaded in step 1 to the /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools directory.
    5. Extract the contents of lcm-tools-prod.tar.gz.
    6. Set the permissions for the lcm-tools directory. 
      cd /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/
          chown vcf_lcm:vcf -R lcm-tools
          chmod 750 -R lcm-tools
  5. On the computer with internet access, download the manifest file.
    This is a structured metadata file that contains information about the VMware Cloud Foundation product versions included in the release Bill of Materials. 
     ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --manifestDownload --depotUser Username --depotUserPassword Password
  6. Copy the manifest file and lcm-tools-prod directory to a computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance.
  7. Upload the manifest file to the SDDC Manager appliance. 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --update --sourceManifestDirectory downloaded-manifest-directory --sddcMgrFqdn FQDN --sddcMgrUser Username
    Use your vSphere SSO credentials for the --sddcMgrUser credentials in the command.
  8. On the computer with internet access, run the following command: 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download "downloadPartnerBundle" --outputDirectory absolute-path-output-dir --depotUser customer_connect_email --sv current-vcf-version --p target-vcf-version --pdu dell_emc_depot_email
    absolute-path-output-dir Path to the directory where the bundle files should be downloaded. This directory folder must have 777 permissions.

    If you do not specify the download directory, bundles are downloaded to the default directory with 777 permissions.

    depotUser VMware Customer Connect email address. You will be prompted to enter the depot user password. If there are any special characters in the password, specify the password within single quotes.
    current-vcf-version Current version of VMware Cloud Foundation. For example, 4.3.1.1.

    If you do not specify a current version, the utility uses 4.1.0.0.
    target-vcf-version Current version of VMware Cloud Foundation. For example, 4.4.0.0.
    dell_emc_depot_email Dell EMC depot email address.

    After you enter you VMware Customer connect and Dell EMC Depot passwords, the utility asks Do you want to download vRealize bundles?. Enter Y or N.

    The utility displays a list of the available bundles based on the current and target versions of VMware Cloud Foundation.

  9. Specify the bundles to download.
    Enter one of the following options:
    • all
    • install
    • patch

    You can also enter a comma-separated list of bundle names to download specific bundles. For example: bundle-38371, bundle-38378.

    Download progress for each bundle is displayed. Wait until all bundles are downloaded.

  10. If you downloaded VxRail bundles:
    1. Copy the partner bundle to the /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/bundle/depot/local/bundles directory on the SDDC Manager appliance.
    2. Copy partnerBundleMetadata.json to the /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/bundle/depot/local directory on the SDDC Manager appliance.
    3. Copy softwareCompatibilitySets.json to the /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/bundle/depot/local directory on the SDDC Manager appliance.
    4. Run following commands on the SDDC Manager appliance: 
      chown -R vcf_lcm:vcf /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/bundle/depot/local
      chmod -R 755 /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/bundle/depot/local
  11. If you downloaded bundles for VMware Cloud Foundation and its components, copy the entire output directory to a computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance, and then copy it to the SDDC Manager appliance.
    For example: 
    scp -pr /root/upgrade-bundles vcf@SDDC_MANAGER_IP:/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/

    The scp command in the example above copies the output directory (upgrade-bundles) to the /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/ directory on the SDDC Manager appliance.

  12. In the SDDC Manager appliance, upload the bundle directory to the internal LCM repository. 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --upload "uploadPartnerBundle" --bundleDirectory 
absolute-path-bundle-dir

    where absolute-path-bundle-dir is the directory where the bundle files have been be uploaded, or /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/upgrade-bundles as shown in the previous step.

    The utility uploads the bundles and displays upload status for each bundle. Wait for all bundles to be uploaded before proceeding with an upgrade.