How to update your vSAN HCL DB without internet

We know that some systems cannot be connected to the internet. In this How to update your vSAN HCL DB without internet, I will show how we can update our vSAN HCL DB without an internet connection.

In my case, a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) doesn’t directly connect to the internet, but I still need to update the vSAN HCL to run a Health check and see if everything is okay with all compatible hardware.

As we can see in the following image, vSAN HCL DB up-to-date option is in RED (no internet connection, so not able to download the latest one), and the latest update was 375 days ago.

If we don’t have internet in the system, the only way to do this is to download the DB from VMware directly.

Download vSAN HCL DB from HERE!
Note: You need to click the right mouse button and select Save link as… or Save file as… is not possible to click and download.

The file that we download is all.json, and we can save it will the name we want or leave the default name.

After downloading the file, click Upload From File in the vSAN HCL DB up-to-date and select the file you just downloaded and upload to the vCenter.

In a few seconds, vCenter will update the vSAN HCL DB, and you will see that now it is up to date.

After you have your vSAN HCL DB up to date, you can Rest the Skyline Health again to check if all is okay with your vSAN HCL DB and Hardware Compatibility.

Since this system doesn’t have internet, there is no point in enabling the Restest with online health option.

As we can see in the next image, all is green.

When we have a system that doesn’t have or cannot have internet(like in an isolated environment or a DMZ), this process is the only way to update our vSAN HCL DB and make sure all our vSAN infrastructure is running with all the Best Practices, and all our hardware is in the Hardware Compatibility List(HCL).

I hope this blog post helps you update your vSAN HCL DB without the internet.

You can find more information about vSAN HCL DB in VMware KB2145116.

Share this article if you think it is worth sharing. If you have any questions or comments, comment here, or contact me on Twitter.

About the Author: Luciano Patrao

I have over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. I have been working with Virtualization for more than 15 years (mainly VMware). I recently obtained certifications, including VCP DCV 2022, VCAP DCV Design 2023, and VCP Cloud 2023. Additionally, I have VCP6.5-DCV, VMware vSAN Specialist, vExpert vSAN, vExpert NSX, vExpert Cloud Provider for the last two years, and vExpert for the last 7 years and a old MCP. My specialties are Virtualization, Storage, and Virtual Backup. I am a Solutions Architect in the area VMware, Cloud and Backup / Storage. I am employed by ITQ, a VMware partner as a Senior Consultant. I am also a blogger and owner of the blog ProVirtualzone.com and recently book author.