Due to a recent lab rebuild, I needed to manually remove the NSX VIBs that were installed on my ESXi host, and thought I would document the process so I can remember it in the future.
Removing the NSX VIBs from a host manually does not remove the configuration stored on the NSX Manager, so care needs to be taken when doing this.
Depending on the version of NSX-v installed, the number of NSX VIBs installed will vary.
For NSX-v versions prior to 6.2.x there are 3 VIBs as listed below
- esx-dvfilter-switch-security
- esx-vxlan
- esx-vsip
For NSX-v versions 6.2.x and above, the esx-dvfilter-switch-security VIB (as well as the new traceflow VIB) was rolled into the esx-vxlan VIB leaving only 2 VIBs.
- esx-vxlan
- esx-vsip
The steps to manually uninstall the appropriate NSX-v VIBs are as follows:
Check that the VIB you want to remove is actually installed on the ESXi host.
esxcli software vib get --vibname <name of VIB>
~ # esxcli software vib get --vibname esx-dvfilter-switch-security [NoMatchError] No VIB matching VIB search specification 'esx-dvfilter-switch-security'. Please refer to the log file for more details. ~ # ~ # esxcli software vib get --vibname esx-vxlan VMware_bootbank_esx-vxlan_5.5.0-0.0.2983935 Name: esx-vxlan Version: 5.5.0-0.0.2983935 Type: bootbank Vendor: VMware Acceptance Level: VMwareCertified Summary: Vxlan and host tool Description: This package loads module and configures firewall for vxlan networking. ReferenceURLs: Creation Date: 2015-08-14 Depends: esx-base >= 5.5, esx-base <= 6.0.0, nsx-api <= 1, vmkapi_2_2_0_0 Conflicts: Replaces: esx-traceflow, esx-dvfilter-switch-security Provides: com.vmware.vxlan = 1.0.0.0-nsx, com.vmware.switchsecurity = 1.0.0.0, com.vmware.traceflow = 1.0.0.0, com.vmware.bfd = 1.0.0.0 Maintenance Mode Required: False Hardware Platforms Required: Live Install Allowed: True Live Remove Allowed: False Stateless Ready: True Overlay: True Tags: Payloads: esx-vxla ~ # ~ # esxcli software vib get --vibname esx-vsip VMware_bootbank_esx-vsip_5.5.0-0.0.2983935 Name: esx-vsip Version: 5.5.0-0.0.2983935 Type: bootbank Vendor: VMware Acceptance Level: VMwareCertified Summary: vsip module Description: This package contains DFW and NetX data and control plane components. ReferenceURLs: Creation Date: 2015-08-14 Depends: esx-base >= 5.5, esx-base <= 6.0.0, nsx-api <= 1, vmkapi_2_2_0_0 Conflicts: Replaces: Provides: vsip = 1.0.0-0 Maintenance Mode Required: False Hardware Platforms Required: Live Install Allowed: True Live Remove Allowed: False Stateless Ready: True Overlay: True Tags: Payloads: esx-vsip ~ #
As I was running NSX-v 6.2.1 on a ESXi 5.5 host, only 2 VIBs are installed.
To remove the VIBs, issue the following command:
esxcli software vib remove -n <VIB name>
~ # esxcli software vib remove -n esx-vxlan Removal Result Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective. Reboot Required: true VIBs Installed: VIBs Removed: VMware_bootbank_esx-vxlan_5.5.0-0.0.2983935 VIBs Skipped: ~ # esxcli software vib remove -n esx-vsip Removal Result Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective. Reboot Required: true VIBs Installed: VIBs Removed: VMware_bootbank_esx-vsip_5.5.0-0.0.2983935 VIBs Skipped: ~ #
Now that the VIBs have been removed, the host can be placed into Maintenance Mode and rebooted.
~ # esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true ~ # reboot
Update: 22/2/2016
Just putting a couple of little lines here that I often use on customer environments.
NSX 6.1.X
esxcli software vib list | grep -i 'name\|\-\-\|vsip\|vxlan\|dvfilter\-switch'
NSX 6.2.X
esxcli software vib list | grep -i 'name\|\-\-\|vsip\|vxlan'