Ho to upgrade standalone vCenter (a physical server, not ESXi nor managed to any vCenter)

[blackraven32]

Hi.

We have vSphere cluster with two ESXi hosts. All on 6.5U3 version.

Now I want to upgrade vCenter to 6.7U3 version using vCenter Server Appliance Istaller.

When I get to 'Connect to source appliance' tab in upgrade setup I get a problem.. The problem is - my vCenter host is a physical machine (not ESXi host nor VM) and I can`t see it from my vCenter panel. It never was a problem until now.

I have to put smth in 'ESXi host or vCenter Server that manages the source appliance' field but I have nothing. No vCenter servers manage my standalone phisycal server. If I put the same server name in that field I get 'Unable to find the source appliance on the specified ESXi host or vCenter Server.' error.

So is there a way to upgrade vCenter in my case?

[beow00lf]

Upgrade tool is basically deploying new VM and throwing your config inside it (then stop/disconnect your original VM).

In your case - maybe CLI upgrade would make a trick? I haven't checked it in a while TBH, but may be at least worth reading about it.

Side note: any particular reason you have vCenter on physical machine? It may be easier to deploy new vCenter (VCSA) rather than upgrading existing one (then - if HW config is same as existing hosts and you have license - adding that physical host as a new ESXi into vCenter).