PSC and vCenter upgrade to 6.7u3 from 6.5u3

[CoffeeBlackest]

Heya folks

I have an environment which is running 6.5u3, we have 3 external PSC's and each of those is connected to a vCenter.  These are connected over high bw links, across a couple of states.

My understanding is that when upgrading from 6.5u3 with ext PSC's, that you need to upgrade all of the PSC's before upgrading the vCenters.  Once upgraded, i can then convert them to Embedded PSCs.

Upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance

The reason i'm attempting to pose this as a question, is because i'm being asked to do this upgrade in parts, basically one site at a time.  Upgrade 1 psc and 1 connected vcenter at a time.  Then a couple days later, go ahead and do the next site, and the next site.

Thoughts?

Thanks

David S

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

Yes! is correct...you have to update one site at a time.

Upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance

ARomeo

[CoffeeBlackest]

Please note these are external PSC's, and the sites are linked and on the same domain as well.  So when i go to vcenter i see all of my vcenters and all of hosts etc.  Also this is copied from the article i linked above:

Important:For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must upgrade the replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful upgrade of all Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent upgrades of multiple vCenter Server appliances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.

So the way i read that, because of our current setup...I have to upgrade all the PSC's first, then all the vCenters.  I shouldn't* update one site at a time, i should do all of the linked sites at the same time (psc's first, then vcenter's...then move to embedded setups per site after that to be a little more future proof).

[CoffeeBlackest]

So i have for instance:

In Chicago

ext PSC1 -> vCenter1

In Washington

ext PSC2 -> vCenter2

In Florida

ext PSC3 -> vCenter3

All 3 vCenter's are linked and connected to the same domain.

So to me that means:

Upgrade, PSC1, then PSC2, then PSC3...

Then upgrade vCenter1, then vCenter2, then vCenter3 (i can't do concurrent upgrades because they do not point to a common ext psc).

[nirmalgnair · Accepted solution]

Hi CoffeeBlackest​,

Yes, you need to update the PSC's first and then the vCenter servers.

You should upgrade one node at a time. Make sure that you have powered off snapshot of all the 6 nodes to be on a safer side 🙂

Regards,

Nirmal Nair

[CoffeeBlackest]

After talking to support yesterday and posing this same question...They said the same thing, but they added that you could potentially stop once the PSC's were complete.  Basically they're saying its important to do all of the PSC's at the same time, don't leave them on different versions...its ok to say: upgrade vcenter01 on day 1, vcenter02 on day 2, and vcenter03 on day 3...again for my situation.

Other info about my upgrade:

Turned out my root user id was hosed for the apps, as was my administrator@vsphere account (probably the pw had been allowed to go un-updated beyond the normal allowed time period).  The root user id was showing as the password having been dead since 1970 (a known issue), the id still allowed me to log in to the areas i needed to with it however.  Turned out it was an issue with the Token rather then the pw itself.  So i ssh'd in to the psc, launched bash from there (cmd: shell), and changed the pw (cmd: passwd root).

login as: root

Pre-authentication banner message from server:

|

| VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.5.0.32000

|

| Type: VMware Platform Services Controller

|

End of banner message from server

root@***** password:

Connected to service

    * List APIs: "help api list"

    * List Plugins: "help pi list"

    * Launch BASH: "shell"

Command> shell

Shell access is granted to root

root@pscservername [ ~ ]# passwd root

New password:

Retype new password:

passwd: password updated successfully

After that issue was resolved (it wouldn't allow upgrades at that point), i still couldn't upgrade, but it was stopping at a different point.  administrator@vsphere wouldn't allow login to the vsphere client, though i verified the pw was correct.  For this i ended up calling support, and they also went in to the bash shell for that to reset the administrator@vsphere account pw, however i didn't manage to get a screen shot of that quickly enough so i don't have that to share.  He basically opened an app, where you had several options (again by ssh'ing in to the psc shell not vcenter shell for me...i think if you had an embedded setup it would have been on the vcenter shell however).  Within that app it allowed you to Reset your ID administrator@vsphere.local in this case, and it created a random 20 char or so password.  At that point i logged in to vsphere* with administrator changed the pw and was able to proceed with the upgrades.

A note for those that are interested...

Our PSC upgrades took:

Stage 1: 6-10 min

Stage 2: 11-14 min

Our vCenter upgrades took:

Stage 1: 5-8 min (for medium sized ones)

Stage 2: 27-40 min (medium)

Stage 1: 14 min (tiny)

Stage 2: 26 min (tiny)

So our PSC upgrades took about 20min each, and our vCenter upgrades took about 40min each.