Minimum licenses for standalone host.

[bergur]

Hi All

I currently have 3 ESXi hosts and a vCenter 6.5 Running on a HPE simplivity... The licenses for the environment is VSPHERE ESSENTIALS PLUS KIT but the vCenter server appliance is running outside of the environment on a standalone ESXi running a Free license... 

Now I need to upgrade the environment to 6.7 ans as a part of that the vCenter appliance is Migrated to a new one... but as the license on the ESXi host is a free license the process is not allowed.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.268Z - info: VM Identifier for Source VC: 5

2020-09-09T11:10:16.384Z - debug: initiateFileTransferFromGuest error: ServerFaultCode: Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.385Z - debug: Failed to get fileTransferInfo:ServerFaultCode: Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.385Z - debug: Failed to get url of file in guest vm:ServerFaultCode: Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.385Z - error: Error in getting fileData for nodeType. Error: ServerFaultCode: Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.386Z - error: Failed to read the nodetype, Error: Current license or ESXi version prohibits execution of the requested operation.

2020-09-09T11:10:16.387Z - info: Checking if password expired

2020-09-09T11:10:27.501Z - info: Banner from server,

VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0.15000

So we need to license the standalone host, but what is the minimum license for the host to be able to allow the process.

Is the VSPHERE ESSENTIALS KIT enough ( The host dose not need to be managed or be a part of the vCenter for the cluster... ) as it loos to me to be the cheapest way to get a license for the host

The error states Failed to getfileTransferInfo, but I'm not sure witch feature is missing... the VSPHERE ESSENTIALS KIT dose not have vMotion will taht stop the process ?

-bergur

[Lalegre]

Hey bergur​,

Yes the Essentials kit is enough as the issue you are facing is that the Installer cannot access the ESXi which holds the vCenter Server as there not APIs being presented and this is because of having the ESXi free version.

Where are you deploying the temporary vCenter needed for the migration? In the ESXi Free also?

[bergur]

Yes both the source and dest is the same ESXi host running on the free license

[Lalegre]

Both of them need a valid license as they need to present the API for doing the upgrade. The source is needed to modify the source vCenter VM and the destination is needed to create the temporary vCenter VM which will be converted to the definitive one after the upgrade.

I would recommend to license both of the ESXi with the essentials license and proceed with the upgrade.