Issue and error related to VM extension for linux VM after patches installed through update manager

Question

Patched got failed for couple of linux virtual machine and noticed below error from update manager history section

Multiple VM extensions failed to be provisioned on the VM. Please see the VM extension instance view for other failures. The first extension failed due to the error: VM 'VM NAME ' has not reported status for VM agent or extensions. Verify that the OS is up and healthy, the VM has a running VM agent, and that it can establish outbound connections to Azure storage. Please refer to https://aka.ms/vmextensionlinuxtroubleshoot for additional VM agent troubleshooting information. The operation did not return a response and should be retried. This result may be incomplete.

Answer 1

Hello Varma,

Welcome the microsoft Q&A, Thankyou for posting your query here.

The error indicates that patching is failed due to the various reasons such as VM unhelathy state, the vm agent not running or network issue that preventing the vm from connectiong to Azure storage.

Ensure that the affected VMs are up and running. You can check this via the Azure portal or by using the Azure CLI command.

az vm get-instance-view --name <VMName> --resource-group <ResourceGroupName>

The error message indicates that there might be an issue with the VM agent.

The VM agent must be running and in a healthy state for extensions to work properly.

You can verify the VM agent status in the same instance view as above.

If the agent is not running, you may need to manually reinstall or update it.

To Update/Install VM Agent on Linux:

Connect to your VM via SSH.

Depending on your Linux distribution, use the appropriate package manager (apt-get for Ubuntu/Debian, yum for RHEL/CentOS) to update or install the waagent package.

After installation or update, restart the agent service.

sudo systemctl restart waagent.

The VM must be able to establish outbound connections to Azure storage, among other endpoints, for extensions to work properly.

Verify network security group (NSG) rules, firewall settings, and any other network controls to ensure that outbound connections are not being blocked.

Check the specific details of the VM extension installation failure.

You can find detailed error messages in the extension's instance view in the Azure portal.

Navigate to the VM in the Azure portal, select "Extensions" from the settings menu, and then click on the extension in question to view its status and error details.

Try to reapply the patches or reinstall the extensions. Sometimes, simply retrying can lead to a successful operation.

Please refer this documentation for troubleshooting steps.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/features-linux?tabs=azure-cli#troubleshoot-vm-extensions

Hope this is helpful.

If an answer has been helpful, please consider accepting the answer to help increase visibility of this question for other members of the Microsoft Q&A community. If not, please let us know what is still needed in the comments so the question can be answered. Thank you for helping to improve Microsoft Q&A.