If there are important patches to deploy in your VCF environment you can use the VMware Async Patch Tool to deploy those patches. You can find a lot of information on the internet on using this tool but still, I ran into some issues. Don’t be like me and read the information that is provided!

The first thing you want to do is to list the available async patches. Run this command:

./vcf-async-patch-tool --listAsyncPatch --du <VMware Customer Connect user name>

I got this output:

ESX_HOST 7.0.2-19290878 [VCF] bundle-56553
ESX_HOST 7.0.1-19324898 [VCF] bundle-55488
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-20036589 [VCF] bundle-58889
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-20328353 [VCF] bundle-60929
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-20842708 [VCF] bundle-66405
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-21053776 [VCF] bundle-69531
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-21313628 [VCF] bundle-70817
ESX_HOST 7.0.3-21424296 [VCF] bundle-72874
VCENTER 7.0.3.00500-19480866[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-55743
VCENTER 7.0.3.00700-20051473[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-58885
VCENTER 7.0.3.00800-20150588[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-59284
VCENTER 7.0.3.01000-20395099[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-61453
VCENTER 7.0.3.01100-20845200[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-66401
VCENTER 7.0.3.01200-20990077[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-67932
VCENTER 7.0.3.01400-21477706[VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-73797
VX_MANAGER 7.0.410-27831807 [VCF_ON_VXRAIL] VXRAIL7-0-410-27831807R5P0C_VxRail-7-0-410-Composite-Upgrade-Slim-Package-for-7-0-x-zip
VX_MANAGER 7.0.411-27954264 [VCF_ON_VXRAIL] VXRAIL7-0-411-27954264DF24Y_VxRail-7-0-411-Composite-Upgrade-Slim-Package-for-7-0-x-zip
NSX_T_MANAGER 3.1.3.7.4-19762317 [VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-57417
NSX_T_MANAGER 3.1.3.8.0-20532384 [VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-63129
NSX_T_MANAGER 3.2.2.0.0-20737185 [VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-64956
NSX_T_MANAGER 3.2.2.0.1-20959512 [VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-68961
NSX_T_MANAGER 3.2.2.1.0-21487560 [VCF, VCF_ON_VXRAIL] bundle-74617

So I choose the latest vCenter update bundle (73797). The bundle was downloaded but in VCF I saw that the status was Future (These bundles are available for download but can be applied only later.) Huh? Why is that?

Well, in the documentation a KB article is referenced: KB88287. In this article, you can see which versions of VMware Cloud Foundation support each async patch. This update was listed but I only looked at the column “Supported VCF Version” and that was showing VCF 4.5. I overlooked the column “Minimum Target VCF Release” that said “Upcoming VCF release later than VCF 4.5.0.0”. Later than 4.5.0.0!!! So this update is not yet supported. Hence the status.

Then I downloaded the bundle that was supported but got an error about the previous bundle. This is also documented and it gives you a warning when you try to download the bundle. So read the warning! And don’t be like me (wasting precious time).