VMware Inc.

11/30/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 11/30/2021 14:20

Skyline Proactive Findings – November Edition

VMware Skyline releases new Proactive Findings every month. Findings are prioritized by trending issues in VMware Support, issues raised through Post Escalation review, Security vulnerabilities, and issues raised from VMware engineering, and customers.

For the month of November, we released 12 new Findings. Of these, there are 7 Findings based on trending issues and 5 based on post escalation reviews. We picked a few findings from each of these categories which stand out in this release.

VMware Support Trending Issues

VMware Support trending issue are KBs that have solved a large number of SRs and/or viewed a large number of times.

As you may be aware, we have identified critical issues following the vSphere 7.0 U3 GA release, leading to two express patches. After further review, additional resolution complexities have come to light which we have been working around the clock to resolve, test and validate. In order to protect all customers from further impact and reduce the potential for further complexity until we have a properly vetted path forward, the decision has been made to put a hold on the full ESXi 7.0 U3 release (incl. ESXi U3, U3a and U3b) and remove it for download at this time. vCenter Server 7.0 U3 and U3a will remain available as a viable upgrade path and ESXi host backwards compatibility remains unchanged.

For now, we are asking customers to hold on any moves to ESXi 7.0 U3. Please reference the following FAQ (https://ikb.vmware.com/s/article/86398) which goes into more detail and also gives guidance for those who have already updated in any form. For transparency and awareness, a banner is also being maintained directly on the download page.

Please cascade this message across your teams and reach out to me should you have any questions not already addressed in the FAQ. I will work with our teams to get the answers needed. We are committed to getting this fully resolved in an upcoming release.

  • Finding ID: vSphere-70U3Recall-KB#86398
    • Description: vSphere ESXi 7.0 U3, U3a, and U3b and vCenter 7.0 U3b Recall.
    • Resolution: vSphere ESXi 7.0 U3, U3a, and U3b and vCenter 7.0 U3b are no longer available for download due to several critical issues identified in them. For information regarding this decision, Please refer to the KB in Helpful Links
    • Helpful Link: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/86398
    • Severity: Critical

In KB 85962, Customers who upgraded to vCenter 7.0 U3 are unable to login to vSphere Lifecycle Manager. This is fixed with vSphere vCenter 7.0 U3a. To work around this issue, login using a vCenter Single Sign-On internal account or the default admin account [email protected] to access the Lifecycle Manager.

  • Finding ID: vSphere-LCMloginfailure-KB#85962
    • Description: "Authentication failed, Lifecycle Manager server could not be contacted", Access to Lifecycle Manager fails in vCenter 7.0 Update 3 when logged in with an Active Directory account.
    • Resolution: This issue is resolved in VMware vCenter 7.0 Update 3a (build number 18778458).
    • Helpful Link: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/85962
    • Severity: Moderate

Post Escalation Review

VMware Support has developed a Post Escalation Review process. We review critical escalations which come into our Escalation management team and determine steps to prevent these escalations in the future with other customers. One of the outcomes of this process is the creation of Skyline Findings.

In KB 83473, When you use very large VMFS6 datastores, the process of allocating file blocks for thin VMDKs in a resource cluster might cause a CPU lockup. As a result, you see CPU lockup messages and in rare cases, ESXi hosts might fail.

  • Finding ID: vSphere-VMFS6CPUlock-ups-KB#83473
    • Description: CPU lock-ups or crashes when using huge VMFS6 datastore in VMware ESXi 7.0.
    • Resolution: This issue is resolved in VMware ESXi 7.0 U2c (build number 18426014)
    • Helpful Link: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/83473
    • Severity: Critical

To review all released Findings for the month of November and all current active VMware Skyline Findings please go to the VMware Skyline Findings Catalog.

Most Viewed Findings in Last 30 Days

Below are the most viewed Findings by users in Skyline.

  1. vSphere-VCFEsxNTPRule-KB#81647
  2. vSphere-VMFS-L-SDCards-KB#83376
  3. vSphere-CustomizeWindowsGuests-KB#1020716
  4. vSphere-VMmorethan3snapshots-KB#1025279
  5. vSphere-CVE-2020-3992-VMSA#202023
  6. vSphere-VCFEsxRemoteSysLogRule-KB#81648
  7. vSphere-DuplicatehostUUID-KB#84349
  8. vSphere-SpectreMeltdown-VMSA#201804-2
  9. vSphere-VmUnresponsivememoryleak-KB#2077302
  10. vSphere-PSODQLFE3-KB#82237
  11. vSphere-PSODQLogicFCHBA-KB#83790
  12. vSphere-Vmtoolsmemoryleak-KB#76163
  13. vSphere-MultipleVCVulnerabilites-VMSA#202120
  14. vSphere-L1TerminalFault-VMSA#201820-3
  15. vSphere-SDCardBootDevice-KB#85685
  16. vSphere-CVE-2021-21997-VMSA#202111
  17. vSphere-iscsiesxibooting-KB#79694
  18. vSphere-IncorrectSpace-KB#83990
  19. vSphere-PSODQFLE3-KB#79058
  20. vSphere-PSODigbnPFException14-KB#67686