Upgrade ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6 Dell Hardware

[temples90]

Hi all,

I have a quick questions regarding upgrading ESXi to the latest version. I manage a number of individual ESXi hosts which currently run version 5.5 free.I would like to upgrade these to ESXi 6 if I can.

I have researched into it and found this might be possible via CLI but my concern is that when I installed the host I used a Dell customised image of ESXi and some people have mentioned that this has caused them issues.

Would anyone be able to advise me on the best upgrade method for what I am trying to achieve, ideally i'd like to do this remotely as some of the servers are over 200 miles away.

Any help on this would be appreciated,

Andrew

[rcporto]

My recommendations is first make sure your hardware is on HCL for the version 6, make backup of your virtual machines and to avoid lost of access, connect to the iDRAC, mount the ISO and do the interactive upgrade.

The following KB shows how to upgrade to version 5.5 using the interactive installer, but it apply to version 6 too: Upgrading to VMware ESXi 5.5 using the Interactive Installer - Support Insider - VMware Blogs

[temples90]

Hi Richardson,

Thanks for the reply. I've looked into this and most of the server only have iDRAC express rather than iDRAC enterprise which I believe is required for the virtual drive mount.

Is there any other way of achieving this without using the DRAC?

Thanks,

Andrew

[a_p_]

With the appropriate image profile (please check whether Dell provides such a .zip file in addition to the .iso image) you can run an upgrade from the host's command line using the esxcli software profile ... command (see Upgrade or Update a Host with Image Profiles)

André

[temples90]

Hi André,

Dell only provide an ISO file on their website. Is there anyway to get the files out of this that i need?

Regards,

Andrew

[i5cream]

Dell also provide zip file on the site. Click "other formats" to list them.

[temples90]

That's fantastic thanks for showing me how to get this. I guess i can use this to upgrade to newer major version and just uses the patches from the vmWare site for the rest. Would that be correct?

Regards,

Andrew

[a_p_]

Yes, that should work. You can find direct links to the patches on https://esxi-patches.v-front.de/ESXi-6.0.0.html

André