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Spectre/Meltdown Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware vCenter 6.5

Spectre/Meltdown Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware vCenter 6.5

As per Security Advisory VMSA-2018-0007, VMware has begun releasing virtual appliance updates to address side-channel analysis due to speculative execution vulnerabilities. One of the first virtual appliances VMware has patched is vCenter 6.5. The latest release, vCenter 6.5U1f, patches the VCSA’s Photon OS to address Spectre-1 (CVE-2018-5753) and Meltdown (CVE-2017-5754) vulnerabilities. Mitigations for Spectre-2 (CVE-2017-5715) are absent from the latest patch as Spectre-1 and Meltdown mitigations were ready to be released; whereas, Spectre-2 patches were still being prepared. UPDATE –…

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Spectre Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware ESXi

Spectre Vulnerability – How to Patch VMware ESXi

Yesterday, news broke about vulnerabilities affecting AMD, Intel, and ARM CPU’s. These vulnerabilities, termed Meltdown and Spectre, have the potential to expose information that the machine(s) process. Check out this post for an in-depth look. At this point, it appears that VMware ESXi is not vulnerable to Meltdown; however, they have released patches for Spectre. It has been speculated that patching the flaws will cause performance hits. To what degree varies by reporting source. As always, test patches before deployment and…

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Patch ESXi using ESXCLi Commands

Patch ESXi using ESXCLi Commands

Last week we discussed how to patch ESXi hosts using VMware Update Manager. However, leveraging Update Manager is not always feasible, so in this post, we’ll walk through the process of installing patches using ESXCLi commands. If you are comfortable executing ESXCLi commands, this process can be completed with relative ease. In this instance, we will be installing a third-party (HPE iLO) VIB. If you are unfamiliar with VIBs (vSphere Installation Bundle), they are collections of files packaged for installation….

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Patch HP Drivers on ESXi Hosts – VMware Update Manager

Patch HP Drivers on ESXi Hosts – VMware Update Manager

Today I wanted to run through the process used to patch HP drivers on an ESXi host; specifically through Update Manager. In a vSphere 6.5 troubleshooting post, we discussed a PSOD issue stemming from a specific HP iLO driver. That being the case, it seemed fitting to go through the patch process for the affected iLO driver in this post. Despite this being a very specific patch, the general patch procedure can be applied to other driver updates as well….

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Update vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

Update vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

As versions of vCenter Server 6.5 are released, admins may be looking to update their environments to leverage the latest functionality and fixes. If you are at that point with your vCenter Server Appliance, don’t sweat the patch process. This update is easily performed using the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface (VAMI) and URL patching. If you are unfamiliar with the VAMI, it is the administrative interface that allows management and monitoring of the vCenter Appliance. If you are all too familiar with…

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