VxRail: After upgrading to 4.5.218, an alert is reported on the hosts: esx.problem.hyperthreading.unmitigated

VxRail Appliance software 4.5.218 contains vSphere 6.5 EP8/U2c which addresses the L1 Terminal Fault vulnerability. Refer to VMware KB reference 55636 for a centralized source of information

For more details from the release notes, check: https://support.emc.com/docu86659_VxRail-Appliance-Software-4.5.x-Release-Notes.pdf?language=en_US

vCenter must be upgraded to 6.5 U2c  prior to patching the nodes. When the appliance is using internal vCenter, the regular upgrade workflow will upgrade vCenter and the nodes after. For external vCenter scenarios, customer will need to upgrade vCenter first.

Both Internal and External vCenter implementations will show an alert after the cluster is upgrade to 4.5.218

If vCenter was upgraded first, automatically on internal vCenter implementation,  and then the hosts, customer will see these alerts on the nodes:



If vCenter was not upgraded, but the nodes were (external vCenter appliances), customers will see these alerts on the nodes:

Make sure to review the following KB carefully. Choosing to ignore the alerts or disabling hyper-threading may affect the security or performance of your appliance.

If your vCenter is not running version 6.5 U2c, be sure to upgrade it. Then, review https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/55806 for the next steps to take on this issue.

Before upgrading clusters with External vCenter, check this kb: VxRail: VxRail and external vCenter interoperability matrix