Yesterday VMware released new version of products such as vSphere 6.0 U1, Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 6.1 or VSAN 6.1. As it's time to upgrade my lab I decided to patch my vCenter Appliance 6.0. VCSA 6.0 U1 offers again the Virtual Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) that is really useful and now totally rewritten - in HTML 5 🙂
In this post I will describe what issue I faced after updating my vCenter Appliance 6.0 to VCSA 6.0 U1. An update process is easy as I described it in my post some months ago. However when I patched (it was much faster than the second time what will be mentioned later in this post) my vCenter, rebooted it and wanted to check VAMI interface, I hit a wall 😀 VAMI is available under https://VCSA_FQDN:5480 but unfortunately I could not connect. I logged in VCSA via SSH and checked if anything listened on 5480 port. Unfortunately I didn't find any service 🙁
During investigating a boot log (/var/log/boot.msg) I found the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ovf_process", line 25, in <module>
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
I checked if libxml2 was installed:
vcenter-lab:~ # rpm -q libxml2
libxml2-2.9.1-1.vmw.2434084
I have faced few times when problem with libxml2 was caused because of mismatch version (installed vs required). I checked on another VCSA 6.0 what version of libxml2 is installed there and was the same! I decided to patch again my VCSA (it needed much more time that during the first time..). When I rebooted my VCSA and checked VAMI... voilà 😉 I could log in:
I checked a version of libxml2 again and it was a little bit better 😉
vcenter-lab:~ # rpm -q libxml2
libxml2-2.9.2-1.vmw.2748529
As you can see, at least libxml2 package was not updated correctly. There are additional logs that you should check:
/var/log/vmware/applmgmt/software-packages.log
/var/log/vmware/applmgmt/vami.log
UPDATE 09.2015: If you have disabled IPv6 on VCSA, please disable IPv6 in lighttpd.conf as well. Probably it will solve the problem. Just edit the /etc/applmgmt/appliance/lighttpd.conf file and change server.use-ipv6="enable" to server.use-ipv6="disable".
UPDATE 12.2015: VMware published a KB about this problem.
Good point. But i am wondering how its work.
Digging a step deeper i found, the supplied mod is compiled against python 2.7, but the system uses python 2.6.
#test case
#python -c 'import libxml2'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
->the same error while booting the appliance, its asking for python2.6 module
#query libxml2 module version
#rpm -q libxml2-python
libxml2-python-2.9.2-1.vmw.2748529
->the same version as in your case
#look was is in it
#rpm -ql libxml2-python
/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/drv_libxml2.py
/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/libxml2.py
/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/libxml2mod.so
-->its for python2.7
#what python package we have
#rpm -q python
python-2.6.9-0.35.1
But VAMI is running:
Update-Version 6.0.0.10000 Build Number 3018521
Hopefully vmware does a little bit more quality assurance before delivering such confusing things
Hi Thomas,
Yes, that's true. Thank you for a really good comment as an update of this post!
Mariusz,
I also have exactly the same problem when after the patch upgrade the VAMI doesn't work... I have tried everything to no avail, everything works but the VAMI web console, could you please let me know how to re-patch again as you stated in your solution below... If I try to patch again the VCSA nothing installs, all patches are applied...
Hi,
I used the same command. In my case not all packages were updated. You haven't find anything in the boot.msg log, have you?
Apparently all my patches installed correctly, that's why when I tried re-install I got "Packages in appliance are up to date with update payload, nothing to install" but at boot up I get the "ImportError: No module named libxml2mod" on splash screen and boot.log, I think I'll cut my loses and deploy a new VCSA from scratch since my current one it's a 6.0.0 upgrade from 5.5.
I had the same problem: Update appeared to work fine, but the build number on vCenter did not change and the VAMI is broken. I checked the libxml2mod version and it is the old version. Running the upgrade again yielded the message that there was nothing to do. I'm going to have to deploy a new appliance as Chafic, though mine was a 6.0b deployment, not 5.5.
Hi,
First of all, great article! Second, I also have problem with VAMI, it doesn't work. I have upgraded vCenter Appliance from first version to 6.0.0.10000. Version of libxml2 is 2.9.2-1.vmw.2748529.
Do you have any idea how can I fix this?
Also, I have some nasty error when running "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net"
vSphere Web Client works without any issue.
Enter a menu number [0]: 0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ovf_process", line 25, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ovf_process", line 25, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Network Configuration for eth0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ipv4support", line 13, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ipv6support", line 13, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Global Configuration
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ipv4support", line 13, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_ipv6support", line 13, in
import libxml2
File "/usr/lib64/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.py", line 1, in
ImportError: No module named libxml2mod
Hostname: vcenter.XXXXX.com
DNS Servers: 192.168.0.200
Domain Name:
Search Path:
Proxy Server:
Hello Ker,
I gave up with this libxml2mod issue and the VAMI not working at all after patch upgrade, in my case was a production VCSA, I have decided not to invest more time trying to fix it and I'm currently on the process of deploying a brand new VCSA from scratch, not sure when the issue occurred, if it was during the 5.5 to 6.0 upgrade or during the 6.0u1 patches, definitely will be more careful applying the patches next time!! in my particular case the problem is a mismatch between the Python libxml2.py and the VAMI libxml2 versions (2.7 vs 2.6). I will post the results of my approach when finished. Thank you.
I feel everyone's pain here! I too ended up deploying a new appliance and saying goodbye to my old data.
It is very unfortunate that you can no longer upgrade via the old method, by deploying a fresh new appliance and migrating data from 6.0 to 6.0 U1.
Possible sollution!
I had the same problem. VAMI didn't work after patching. When I tried to start VAMI from the console, there where also messages related to a missing certificate, so it was clear something wasn't as it should be.
I used the ISO "VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.0.0.10000-3018521-patch-TP.iso" when I patched the first time.
Then I decided to mount the ISO "VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.0.0.10000-3018521-patch-FP.iso" instead.
I ran patch command "software-packages install --iso --acceptEulas" again, and this time there where 143 updates instead of 92 updates to be applied.
After the updates where installed, I rebooted, and accessed https://vcenter:5480 ..... and now VAMI is back again.
Hi Lars,
I used VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.0.0.10000-3018521-patch-FP.iso and had problems with VAMI. Of course, FP should be used to patch vCenter, however sometimes it does not work as you could see comments in this post 🙂
Mariusz, thank you for the great articles, and thank you Bhavish for the resolution for VAMI, my issue was the IPV6 being disabled and the host file needed to be cleaned up.
Bhavish, your solution worked perfect! Thanks!
After trying to connect to VMware vCenter Server Appliance with vCenter administrator account (admin@sso.domain) i get an "Unable to authenticate user. Please try again." message.
What kind of username form do i need to enter here, to login to VCSA? I'm running VCSA 6.0 U1. Thanks
If you login to :5480, you need to use root.
Mariusz,
thank you for this article and thanks to Bhavish, this solved our problems too.
Hello Mariusz
I am trying to look for Bhavish`s solution that he posted but I dont seem to find it. If there are many people posting thanks if his solution works, the post should have been made available instead of being deleted.
Give due credit to the person who solved the issue.
Rdgs,
Jake
Hi Jake,
thanks so much for that info. I haven't deleted comments,
however I don't know why there are not visible! I'm investigating it now.There is a bug in WordPress 4.4. Waiting for a solution.HI Again,
Strange, that the bug affects only 1 post among so many...
Anyway... waiting for the "bug fix".
Rdgs,
Jake
Hi
not only one - please count comments on this page and compare with counter at the beginning of the comments area...In this post 3 comments are not shown. Thank you again for that info.
Hi Jake,
The solution I posted has been also posted on the main page by Mariusz; see section: UPDATE 09.2015.
The most important here is that the solution works for many people and I hope VMware will tackle this issue in next patch release for VCSA 6.
Hi Mariusz
Thanks for being patient.
Rdgs,
Bhavish
Hi all,
I do have the same issue with not seeing all manage tabs on top but, the difference with me is I never updated to VCSA6 from ver5x. I just edited the .vmx text file with the network info and booted and then logged on as root. I'm using ver 6.0.0.10000
Now I talked to support about this and I was ask to use VIMSetup-all-6.0.0-3343019.
Not sure what the difference is but i'll update.
BTW I'm no programmer but I am a CCIE and I can't believe the stuff VMware makes you go through just to make their stuff work.
Good site