vSphere Management Assistant 5.5 Patch 1 Release Notes

The release notes covers the following topics:

• About vMA
• What’s New in vMA 5.5 Patch 1
• Installing vMA 5.5 Patch 1

Note: The topics in which this documentation uses the product name "ESXi" are applicable to all supported releases of ESX and ESXi.

About vMA

vMA is a Linux-based virtual machine that is pre-installed with a command-line interface and select third-party agents needed to manage your vSphere infrastructure. Administrators and developers can use vMA to run scripts and agents to manage vSphere 5.5, vSphere 5.1 and later, vSphere 5.0 and later systems. vMA includes the vSphere SDK for Perl and the vSphere Command-Line Interface (vSphere CLI). vMA also includes an authentication component named vi-fastpass. vi-fastpass allows direct connection to established target servers without user intervention.

For information about vSphere CLI, refer to the vSphere Command-Line Interface Documentation.

What’s New in vMA 5.5 Patch 1

vMA 5.5 patch 1 includes the following changes and enhancements:

• The base operating system is updated to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 (13-February-2014).

• JRE is updated to JRE 1.7.0_51.

• VMware Tools is updated to 9.0.10 (build 1481436).

The resolved and known issues are same as that documented for vMA 5.5.

Installing vMA 5.5 Patch 1

You can deploy the vMA OVF from your vSphere Client connected to a vCenter Server system or ESXi host, as described in the vSphere Management Assistant Guide.

1. Download and unzip the vMA ZIP archive.
2. In the vSphere Client, choose File > Deploy OVF Template.
3. When prompted by the wizard, click Deploy from a file or URL and select the OVF in the folder to which you have extracted the ZIP file and follow the instructions in the wizard.

When you start vMA, proceed as follows:

• When prompted, specify custom network settings.
• When prompted, specify a password for the vi-admin user for logging in to vMA. The password must conform to the vMA password policy. The password must have at least:
  • Eight characters
  • One upper case character
  • One lower case character
  • One numeral character
  • One symbol such as #, $
  The vi-admin user has root privileges on vMA. The root user is disabled.

Updating Existing vMA Installation

You can install the patch over an existing vMA 5.5 installation.
Important: You can install this patch only on vMA 5.5. Use only the Web user interface to upgrade your existing vMA 5.5 instance.

To install the patch on an existing vMA 5.5 installation, perform the following steps:

1. Access the Web UI.
2. Log in as vi-admin.
3. Click the Update tab and then the Status tab.
4. Open the Settings tab and then from the Update Repository section, select a repository.
5. Click Check Updates.
6. Click Install Updates.