Remove VIBs on ESXi hosts – NSX 4.2 on VCF 5.2

Overview

While working with VCF, things can go wrong. Sometimes that means removing hosts and cleaning them up so they can be reused again. Unfortunately, the built in tools do not always work and we have to resort to alternate methods.

Steps to Remove the VIBs

Disable SNMP.

esxcli system snmp set --enable false

Enable Maintenance Mode.

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true

Check for VIBs.

esxcli software vib list | grep -E 'nsx|vsipfwlib'

Remove the VIBs in this order. The command to run follows.

esxcli software vib remove \
-n nsx-adf \
-n nsx-exporter \
-n nsx-opsagent \
-n nsx-netopa \
-n nsxcli \
-n nsx-cfgagent \
-n nsx-context-mux \
-n nsx-proxy \
-n nsx-nestdb \
-n nsx-vdpi \
-n nsx-host \
-n nsx-ids \
-n nsx-monitoring \
-n nsx-sfhc \
-n nsx-platform-client \
-n nsx-mpa \
-n nsx-python-logging \
-n nsx-python-protobuf \
-n nsx-python-utils \
-n nsx-cpp-libs \
-n nsx-esx-datapath \
–no-live-install \
-n vsipfwlib \
-n nsx-proto2-libs \
-n nsx-shared-libs \
-n nsx-snproxy

esxcli software vib remove -n nsx-adf -n nsx-exporter -n nsx-opsagent -n nsx-netopa -n nsxcli -n nsx-cfgagent -n nsx-context-mux -n nsx-proxy -n nsx-nestdb -n nsx-vdpi -n nsx-host -n nsx-ids -n nsx-monitoring -n nsx-sfhc -n nsx-platform-client -n nsx-mpa -n nsx-python-logging -n nsx-python-protobuf -n nsx-python-utils -n nsx-cpp-libs -n nsx-esx-datapath --no-live-install -n vsipfwlib -n nsx-proto2-libs -n nsx-shared-libs -n nsx-snproxy

Reboot.

reboot

Check for VIBs again. This time there should be no VIBs.

esxcli software vib list | grep -E 'nsx|vsipfwlib'

Turn off Maintenance Mode on the ESXi host. This is necessary if the hosts are going to be commissioned.

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false

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