Lifecycle Management polls the VMware depot to access 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.

Beginning with the VMware Cloud Foundation 4.2 release, you must also download the manifest file and upload it to the SDDC Manager appliance. The manifest contains information about the VMware product versions included in the release Bill of Materials and is used to determine the upgrade path. It is recommended that you download the manifest file and upload it to the SDDC Manager appliance periodically so that you are aware of the latest available bundles.

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.

Procedure

  1. Download the Bundle Transfer utility on a computer with internet access.
    1. Login to your MyVMware 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 Tools and click Go To Downloads.
    5. Click Download Now for the Bundle Transfer Utility and Skip Level Upgrade Tool.
  2. Extract lcm-tools-prod.tar.gz.
  3. Navigate to the lcm-tools-prod/bin/ and confirm that you have execute permission on all folders.
  4. Validate that the utility version matches the target release. Run the following command to display the utility version:
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util -v
  5. In the same directory, download the manifest file. This is a structured metadata file that contains information about the VMware product versions included in the release Bill of Materials.
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --manifestDownload --depotUser Username
    Enter your My VMware password when prompted.
  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 Manifest-Downloaded-Directory --sddcMgrFqdn FQDN --sddcMgrUser Username
    Use your vSphere SSO credentials for the --sddcMgrUser parameter.
  8. SSH into the SDDC Manager appliance, navigate to the /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools/bin directory, and generate a marker file: 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --generateMarker
    The marker file (named markerFile) is a JSON file that contains information on the current software versions running on SDDC Manager. It also contains the bundles IDs for bundles that were downloaded before this file was generated. The markerFile.md5 file contains the checksum for the markerFile. The output contains the directory where the marker file is generated. The marker file is used to determine the bundles required to upgrade VMware Cloud Foundation.
  9. Copy markerFile and markerFile.md5 to the computer with internet access.
  10. On the computer with internet access, run the following command. 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --outputDirectory absolute-path-output-dir --depotUser depotUser --markerFile absolute-path-markerFile --markerMd5File absolute-path-markerFile.md5
    where
    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 User name for the VMware depot (My VMware). 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.
    markerFile Absolute path to the marker file you generated earlier.

    If you do not specify the path to the marker file, all update bundles on the depot are downloaded.

    markerMd5File Absolute path to the marker MD5 checksum file.

    The utility generates a delta file (deltaFileDownloaded) in the output directory based on the software versions in the marker file and the bundles available on the depot. The bundles identified in the delta file are downloaded. Download progress for each bundle is displayed.

  11. When the bundle downloads complete, copy the output directory to a computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance, and then copy the directory to the SDDC Manager appliance.
    For example: 
    scp -pr /root/vcf41ToVcf2Bundles vcf@SDDC_MANAGER_IP:/nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/

    The scp command in the example above creates a directory named vcf41ToVcf2Bundles in the /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/ directory.

  12. In the SDDC Manager appliance, change the ownership and permissions for the directory where you uploaded the bundle. 
    chmod -R 0777 /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/vcf41ToVcf2Bundles
  13. In the SDDC Manager appliance, upload the bundle files to the internal LCM repository. You must upload the upgrade and install bundles.
    1. SSH in to the SDDC Manager appliance using the vcf user account.
    2. Enter su to switch to the root user.
    3. Navigate to /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools/bin.
    4. Run the following command: 
      ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --upload --bundleDirectory absolute-path-bundle-dir
      • Replace absolute-path-bundle-dir with the path to the location where you copied the output directory. For example: /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/upgrade-bundles.
    cd /opt/vmware/vcf/lcm/lcm-tools/bin
./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --upload --bundleDirectory absolute-path-bundle-dir

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