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IB_LM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎10-14-2013 01:09 AM

ESXi5.5 Downgrade

Hello,

I've upgraded my esxi5.1 free to esxi5.5 free. Now, for various reasons, I need to go back to 5.1.

I've installed 5.1 on top of 5.5 (upgrading), but i still see the 5.5 in the version info, even though the image is noted 5.1.

Recovery mode shows 5.1 (default) and 5.5 :smileyalert:

Anyone with a solution for this?

Untitled.jpg

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6 Replies
tomtom901
Commander
Commander
‎10-14-2013 01:38 AM

Via SSH, run the following command. What kind of output does this produce?

~ # uname -a

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IB_LM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎10-14-2013 01:42 AM

5.5.0 #1 SMP Release build-1331820 Sep 18 2013 23:08:31 x86_64 GNU/Linux

:smileyangry:

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tomtom901
Commander
Commander
‎10-14-2013 01:48 AM

So, in fact you are still running 5.5. Is it an option to install 5.1 on a USB stick, or to format the device on which ESXi is installed? If not you can install it on a USB stick and set the BIOS boot order accordingly.

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IB_LM
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎10-14-2013 01:58 AM

I guess that a USB install is possible.

In regards to a new install, I am somewhat worried since i have a storage connected. Will the mounted drives and data remain?

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tomtom901
Commander
Commander
‎10-14-2013 02:01 AM

With a new install, no, you have to recreate this.

While using the VMA, you can use 

 vicfg-cfgbackup

To backup the current configuration.

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PeteC72
Contributor
Contributor
‎02-06-2014 02:28 AM

Hi,

I successfuly downgraded 5.5 to 5.1 in our LAB environmenrt using vicfg-cfgbackup with small work-around. The Keypoint was to to change the first line in the Manifest.txt to show a 5.1 config.

1. use "vicfg-cfgbackup -s  5.5config.tgz" to save the 5.5 config to a gzipped tar ball

2. extract the archive with "tar xzf 5.5config.tgz" to a temp. directory

3. edit the Manifest.txt and change the line

RELEASELEVEL=VMware ESXi 5.5.0 GA

to

RELEASELEVEL=VMware ESXi 5.1.0 Update 2

4. create new tar archive with "tar czf 5.1config.tgz Manifest.txt state.tgz"

5. install a fresh ESXi5.1 (choose install instead of upgrade, but keep the local datastores if any)

5. apply the new config to a fresh ESXi5.1 with "vicfg-cfgbackup -l 5.1config.tgz..."

I kept the physical network and storage environment unchanged while downgrading and after the config restore, all the settings and even registered VMs were present.

Cheers

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