Upgrading ESXi with local disk only - how do I avoid overwriting existing VMs?

[kb_sweden]

Hello,

I have this single, not-clustered ESXi 6.5-host, that I want to upgrade to 6.7U3.

It has only local disks, with two local datastores, local_ds_system for the hypervisor-installation, and local_ds_data for the VMs.

Questions:

1. Can I safely update this host to 6.7, without risking overwriting the VMs located at local_ds_data, by using Update Manager and a downloaded ESXi image?

2. Do I have to/do you recommend unmounting the local_ds_data datastore first, if possible?

3. Or should I approach this in a different way?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Upgrading en ESXi host will not harm the datastores unless you explicitly select to overwrite them.

Update Manager requires vCenter Server. If you are going to upgrade a stand-alone host without vCenter Server in place, you may go with an interactive upgrade using the installation ISO image (burned on a CD-ROM, if you don't have an option to mount the ISO image through e.g. a management interface). An alternative to the interactive upgrade, is to use an ESXi Offline Bundle (.zip file), and run the upgrade from the command line using the esxcli software ... command.

André

PS: I assume that your hardware is supported by ESXi 6.7 (see VMware Compatibility Guide - System Search).

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[a_p_]

... no matter how you upgrade, it's always a good idea to have an up-to-date backup!

[kb_sweden]

I have vCenter Server and Update Manager, but I think I will choose to use PuTTY and the offline bundle, which according to VMware is "more efficient and quicker and you can confirm that the VMs storage is not overwritten". I will also monitor the upgrade through the IMM. Thanks for your help!

[a_p_]

Please remember to upgrade vCenter Server prior to upgrading the host. vCenter 6.5 cannot manage ESXi 6.7.

André

[kb_sweden]

The offline bundle, where do I see which upgrade paths it supports? My host is VMware ESXi 6.5.0-9298722 (ESXi 6.5U2c).

According to the Product Interoperability Matrix, this upgrade path is supported, but I got a bit confused when the name of the offline bundle file is "update-from-esxi6.7-6.7_update03", which may indicate that this file is only for upgrading from 6.7 to 6.7U3 (6.7-6.7_update03)? Where can I find specific info of which versions I can upgade with this file? The Product Interoperability Matrix  info, is it relevant for the offline bundle file as well?

[kb_sweden]

Yes, I'm aware, we have upgraded the vCenter already, thanks anyway!

[a_p_]

Regarding "update-from-esxi6.7-6.7_update03"

The reason for the name in this case is to show, that this bundle contains bulletins for all vibs. This might be important if the bundle is used for an import into Update Manager (in case UM e.g. doesn't have Internet access), but these bulletins are not used when patching a host from the command line using esxcli software install|update ...

One word of caution though. Most major vendors provide customized images, and offline bundles, which contain vendor specific drivers, and tools. If you have such hardware, check with the vendor (or on the VMware web site) whether a vendor customized image/offline bundle is available, and use this for the upgrade!

André

[kb_sweden]

OK, thanks! I don't know how this particular host was installed, if it used a standard VMware ISO or a customized image.

Is there any way to check this? The hardware is IBM/Lenovo x3650 M5 with Intel Xeon CPU E5-2630 v3 @ 2.40GHz

Another question:

The offline bundle consists of 4 profiles(?),

ESXi-6.7.0-20190801001s-no-tools

ESXi-6.7.0-20190802001-no-tools

ESXi-6.7.0-20190802001-standard

ESXi-6.7.0-20190801001s-standard

What’s the difference between these four?

Which one do I choose in the update command below?

>> esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volume/<datastore-name>/<offlinefile-name> -p <output of previous command>

>> esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volume/<datastore-name>/<offlinefile-name> -p <output of previous command>

[larstr]

kb_sweden,

To check what version you have installed select an ESX host, go to the summary tab and look for Configuration and you'll find something like

or

The first example here is using a standard VMware image while the second one uses a vendor image.

The s-version of the VMware image contains only security patches while the standard version includes both security and other patches.

If you're updating VMware Tools through the operating system (most liunux distros can do that now) you may not need a version of the image with tools.

U usually chose a standard image with tools, but your requirements may be dirrefent than mine.

Lars

[kb_sweden]

Thanks, very helpful! I learned that the command esxcli software profile get also shows me the installed version, in my case ESXi-6.5.0-20170404001-standard

So I will go ahead and use the standard offline bundle, update-from-esxi6.7-6.7_update03.zip

[larstr]

kb_sweden,

An upgrade from that 6.5-version to 6.7U3 should be ok as it also looks like your server is indeed supported on the HCL for 6.7U3

Lars