Skyline Collector not upgrading to newest version

In September, VMware announced the next level of proactive intelligence called Skyline Advisor Pro. For everyone who is not familiar with Skyline, Skyline is a proactive support service aligned with VMware Global Support Services. VMware Skyline automatically and securely collects, aggregates, and analyzes product usage data which proactively identifies potential problems and helps VMware Technical Support Engineers (TSE) improve the resolution time. Not only does it helps a TSE but also you as a customer as you can proactively see if there are any issues in your environment that should be fixed. For the new Skyline Advisor Pro, you also need that the Skyline Collector be updated to version 3.0. Normally an “Auto-Upgrade” option can be enabled so that your collector is always on the newest version.

Problem:

This “Auto-Upgrade” feature is also my problem. Unfortunately, my 2.7 Skyline Collector was not upgraded to the newest version for whatever reason. I checked the Skyline Collector interface but I found no error there. So everything should be working fine. You should also see a banner when logging in to the Skyline Collector telling you that a new version is available. This banner is also not showing.

Solution:

Because of that I tried to connect via SSH to the remote console and got the following message:

Looks like my “root” password has expired and therefore the appliance was not updated correctly.

The “Auto-Upgrade” process is running at the time you have configured in Skyline Collector. If you want to install the newest version now, you can use the vamicli.

Here is the commando for checking the available version of Skyline Collector:

root@skyline01 [ ~ ]# vamicli update --check
Checking for available updates, this process can take a few minutes...
.
Available Updates -
   3.0.0.0 Build 18775414

To install the latest version you can use this command:

vamicli update --install latest --accepteula

It takes some time to download and install the new package. The system reboots automatically when everything is installed.

root@skyline01 [ ~ ]# vamicli update --install latest --accepteula
Installing version -
3.0.0.0 Build 18775414
....................................................................................................................................................Connection to sfcbd lost
Attempting to reconnect: 1
............
Broadcast message from root@skyline01.xx.xx.xx (Mon 2021-11-22 18:05:04 CET):
The system is going down for reboot at Mon 2021-11-22 18:06:04 CET!

The new version can be checked by this command or through the UI:

root@skyline01 [ ~ ]# vamicli version --appliance
Version - 3.0.0.0 Build 18775414
Description - Skyline Appliance version 3.0.0.0

I’m not sure what happened here but normally I disable all password expiration settings. Before I changed the “root” password I checked these settings and found this:

I assume I couldn’t see the real settings because the “root” password has expired. After I changed the “root” password it showed me this:

Password expiration was disabled but somehow the “root” account password has expired. Maybe there was some overlapping between disabling it and expiring the password. I will keep an eye on it.

Conclusion

If the “root” password is expired, the “Auto-Upgrade” feature will not work. You should keep this in mind when there is a problem with the Skyline Collector Appliance upgrade.

After I upgraded my Skyline Collector appliance to version 3.0, my Skyline Advisor was also enabled for Skyline Advisor Pro.

I would personally recommend every customer who has Production Support or higher to install Skyline and connect every required and supported product to it. It really helps to address issues proactively.