How to upgrade the vMA 5
Last week vSphere 5 Update 1 was released by VMware, along with the main products some of the SDKs and automation tools were also updated, including the vMA.
As you should remember from my first post about vMA 5 the classic vma-update utility is no longer available. So to be able to update our vMA to the new version we have to use the Web UI. Following is the procedure to perform the upgrade.
First access the web interface using the vi-admin user as always.
From the main screen go to the Update tab. In the Status screen click on Check Updates.
After a few seconds a message will appear showing the new update available.
Click on Install Updates and after asking for confirmation the update process will start.
Once the update process is complete the appliance will ask for a system reboot.
Go to the System tab and perform the reboot. After the reboot is done you can check the new version in the appliance console,
And in the vma-release file, located at /etc.
vi-admin@vma:~> cat /etc/vma-release vMA 5.0.0 BUILD-643553 Copyright (C) 1998-2011 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more U.S. Patent Numbers D617,808, D617,809, D617,810, D617,811, 6,075,938, 6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672, 6,725,289, 6,735,601, 6,785,886, 6,789,156, 6,795,966, 6,880,022, 6,883,095, 6,940,980, 6,944,699, 6,961,806, 6,961,941, 6,970,562, 7,017,041, 7,055,032, 7,065,642, 7,069,413, 7,069,435, 7,082,598, 7,089,377, 7,111,086, 7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149,310, 7,149,843, 7,155,558, 7,222,221, 7,260,815, 7,260,820, 7,269,683, 7,275,136, 7,277,998, 7,277,999, 7,278,030, 7,281,102, 7,290,253, 7,343,599, 7,356,679, 7,386,720, 7,409,487, 7,412,492, 7,412,702, 7,424,710, 7,428,636, 7,433,951, 7,434,002, 7,447,854, 7,447,903, 7,467,067, 7,475,002, 7,478,173, 7,478,180, 7,478,218, 7,478,388, 7,484,208, 7,487,313, 7,487,314, 7,490,216, 7,500,048, 7,506,122, 7,516,453, 7,529,897, 7,543,301, 7,555,747, 7,565,527, 7,571,471, 7,577,722, 7,581,064, 7,590,715, 7,590,982, 7,594,111, 7,596,594, 7,596,697, 7,599,493, 7,603,704, 7,606,868, 7,620,523, 7,620,766, 7,620,955, 7,624,240, 7,630,493, 7,636,831, 7,657,659, 7,657,937, 7,665,088, 7,672,814, 7,680,919, 7,689,986, 7,693,996, 7,694,101, 7,702,843, 7,707,185, 7,707,285, 7,707,578, 7,716,446, 7,734,045, 7,734,911, 7,734,912, 7,735,136, 7,743,389, 7,761,917, 7,765,543, 7,774,391, 7,779,091, 7,783,779, 7,783,838, 7,793,279, 7,797,748, 7,801,703, 7,802,000, 7,802,248, 7,805,676, 7,814,495, 7,823,145, 7,831,661, 7,831,739, 7,831,761, 7,831,773, 7,840,790, 7,840,839, 7,840,993, 7,844,954, 7,849,098, 7,853,744, 7,853,960, 7,856,419, 7,856,531, 7,856,637, 7,865,663, 7,869,967, 7,886,127, 7,886,148, 7,886,346, 7,890,754, 7,895,437, 7,908,646, 7,912,951, 7,921,197, 7,925,850; patents pending. VMware, the VMware "boxes" logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. vi-admin@vma:~>
The above procedure use the default VMware repository and your appliance must be able to resolve public DNS addresses and access the internet in order to download de upgrade bits.
Juanma.


Are you using the default repository for this? I can have it check for updates and it finds 5.0.0.1 but when I try to run the install it states “Failed to install updates (Error while running package installation)
Hi Dorsey. Thanks for the comment.
Yes I’m using the default repository and I did the upgrade of my lab vMA without a problem.
I too am seeing the “Failed to install updates (Error while running package installation)” message appear when trying to perform update1….
I have full connectivity to the internet
Thanks for the post. This one is what I am looking for. Keep up the good work blogger.