Upgrade ESXi 4.0 to 6.5

[bdbond]

Hello all.

I have an older IBM x3500 M2 baremetal server running ESXi 4.0 and I now have the need to upgrade it.  Does anyone have any pointers or pitfalls for me to watch out for?  Do I need to go to ESXi v5.5 first?  Will the upgrade preserve my existing VMs (there are 4 of them in inventory)?

The machine is functional at the moment and this upgrade is being mandated in order to patch for spectre-meltdown.

Thanks!

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

The very first thing you need to do is check the HCL to ensure your hardware is even capable of being upgraded, which it very well may not be. If it is, you will almost certainly require firmware updates to bring it into compliance with the said HCL.

[daphnissov]

...which it's not.

[bdbond]

Thank you daphnissov​ for your quick reply!

If I understand the HCL correctly, I can at most get to v5.5 U3.   Presuming the firmware is at the correct level.  Do you agree?

[daphnissov]

No, at most you can go to 5.1 U3 presuming the firmware is at a sufficient level.

[bdbond]

Thank you daphnissov​.  From what I can see, there is no patch available for any of the ESXi 4.x or 5.x versions.  Does anyone know if VMWare intends to provide a patch for these legacy versions currently out of support or EOL?

[daphnissov]

To my knowledge, they will not be providing patches for unsupported versions of ESXi.

[bdbond]

Unfortunate but understandable.  Thank you daphnissov​!