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.

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.

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 the 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. 
      tar -xvf 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 product versions included in the release Bill of Materials.
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --manifestDownload --depotUser Username
    Enter your VMware Customer Connect 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. On the computer with internet access, run the following command. 
    ./lcm-bundle-transfer-util --download --outputDirectory absolute-path-output-dir --depotUser depotUser --sv current-vcf-version --p target-vcf-version
    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 (VMware Customer Connect). 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 Target version of VMware Cloud Foundation. For example, 4.4.0.0.
    After you enter you VMware Customer connect password, 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.
  10. When the bundle downloads complete, copy the entire output directory to a computer with access to the SDDC Manager appliance, and then copy it to the SDDC Manager appliance.
    You can select any location on the SDDC Manager appliance that has enough free space available. For example, /nfs/vmware/vcf/nfs-mount/.
    Example command to copy the output directory to the SDDC Manager appliance: 
    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.
  11. Upload the directory to the SDDC Manager appliance internal LCM repository.
    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.
    The utility uploads the bundles and displays upload status for each bundle. Wait for all bundles to be uploaded before proceeding with an upgrade.