Upgrade Help/questions

[bevege]

We have about 10 ESXi 4.0.xxx boxes on different versions that we want to upgrade to the latest version of esxi, which looks like it is 4.1. The host systems are all dell 1855 blades using local hard drives, no NAS or SANs. Nearly all of the guests are Centos boxes. We don't have vcenter or any of the management tools, they are stand alone boxes. I'm trying to sort out all of the confusing documentation to make sure I understand what I'm doing.

From what I read in Vphere upgrade guide it seems that the best way to do is via the vihostupdate command using the vphere cli. Using the following procedure. Or the esxupdate directions below. I also tried the Host Update Utility but it fails.

Procedure

1 Download the following upgrade ZIP bundle from the VMware Web site to a location that is accessible

to the vSphere CLI machine.

upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.build#-release.zip

The upgrade ZIP bundle contains and esxupdate bulletin and an upgrade bulletin.

2 Power off any virtual machines that are running on the host and place the host into maintenance mode.

3 Install the esxupdate bulletin by running the following command on the vSphere CLI machine.

vihostupdate --server host name or IP address -i -b location of the ESXi upgrade ZIP bundle -

B ESXi410-GA-esxupdate

4 Install the upgrade bulletin by running the following command on the vSphere CLI machine.

vihostupdate --server host name or IP address -i -b location of the ESXi upgrade ZIP bundle -

B ESXi410-GA

5 Verify that the bulletins are installed on the ESXi host by running the following command.

vihostupdate.pl --server host name or IP address --query

6 Reboot the host.

I also read these directions from Vmware self service

ESXi 4.x:

To upgrade an ESXi 4.x host, use the ESXi-4.x.x-updatexx.zip file.

This example command updates an ESXi 4.x host to a newer released update:

esxupdate --bundle=ESXi-4.x.x-updatexx.zip

Questions

1. Are these the two recommended ways to do an upgrade (besides the host update utility which fails for me)

2. Do both these methods achieve the same result? Seems like the esxupdate would be much faster but not sure.

3. Are the upgrades all inclusive? (I believe they are). For example, running the latest 4.1 ugprade bundle will upgrade any 4.0.xxxx box to the latest version.

Any other advice or suggestions welcome. I'm going to test both methods on a test machine shortly but would like more experienced users input.

Thanks

Documents I've read:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101923...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102067...

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

[DSTAVERT]

Number one task is to check the Hardware Compatibility List to make sure your hardware is compatible.

[bevege]

Thanks for the info. Just in case anyone reads this.

I was able to upgrade using the following:

1. upload/download upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip to the host. I just created a temp directory in the datastore

2. Shutdown all VM's via vsphere client

3. Put host in Maintenance mode via vsphere client

4. change to directory you created in step 1

5. run esxupdate --bundle=upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip

6. Reboot

7. Verify everything is running

8. Make sure you have a 4.1 license, if not get one from the vmware site.

Everything seems to be working great, this only took about 10 minutes.

I'm going to try the vsphere command line option also when I have some time. Can't imagine it could be any easier than this. I would still like to know if this is really the correct way to do this. I only saw one little 3 line post in one of the articles about this method. The upgrade guide says to use the cli.

[athlon_crazy]

Thanks for sharing the steps. However, I'm wondering whether we still can use the previous license from vSphere 4.0 to new vShere 4.1?

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

[CMCC]

where exactly can i find upgrade-from-ESX4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip?

[bgentili]

CMCC- To download the upgrade file, go to downloads and choose ESXi 4.1, click Download, (login if you haven't), you will then be directed to all the downloads for ESXi 4.1. Scroll down to the Binaries and the upgrade file will be listed just after the ISO file.