VMTN Blog

Update (April 19, 2007): New patches are available that replace the two recalled patches.  Details on the two links below.

Normally we don't directly blog product announcements on the VMTN Blog -- instead, they are always blogged on  VMTN Top News, which is also subscribable via RSS.  But in this case, we wanted to be sure we fully communicated the recall of the latest ESX Server patch:

The 2.5.4 patch 6 (Build #41630) and 2.5.3 patch 9 (Build #41618) have been recalled in the interest of stability for ESX servers.

In an environment where Windows and Linux virtual machines are configured with vmxnet virtual NIC driver, when the virtual machine is either powered off, suspended or migrated live via VMotion to another host, a small amount of memory is not freed.  Hence, multiple virtual machine power-offs, suspensions and VMotions may cause the host to run low on memory.

A replacement patch which fixes this issue will be released within a few days and posted to the same page as the original patch:

2.5.3 Patch Download Page: http://www.vmware.com/support/esx25/doc/esx-253-200703-patch.html

2.5.4 Patch Download Page: http://www.vmware.com/support/esx25/doc/esx-254-200703-patch.html

Additional details, including workarounds, are available at the two links above.