I have a small, three physical host installation of vCenter Appliance 5.5 with hosts at ESXi 5.5. I want to upgrade through vCenter 6.5 to vCenter 6.7 (to get away from Adobe Flash EOL issues) while incrementally upgrading ESXi to 6.0 and then 6.5 but I think I need to stop there due to Dell server compatibility limits.
My concern is that I am deployed in a test network environment that does not have a DNS that I can add host/IP entries. I've always only used the fixed IP addresses to access our machines and VMs since it is a testbed system. The upgrade manuals and several posts here seem to require that the current vCenter appliance (and maybe a temporary name/IP for the upgrade appliance?) be listed in an DNS, or the upgrade script will fail.
(1) Is it true that the ISO-based UI driven upgrade process requires the current vCenter to be DNS name resolvable?
(2) Does there need to be a DNS entry for the temporary vCenter upgrade appliance name?
(3) Do the ESXi hosts also need to be name resolvable for either the vCenter appliance upgrade or the ESXi CD-ROM Boot upgrade method?
Is there a work around to not require a DNS entry? One post suggested for such a small installation, it may be easier to just install a new vCenter Appliance and add the ESXi hosts to that vCenter instead of using the migration/upgrade script approach.
Any help would be appreciated.
No DNS server required...
provide any network reachable ip/gateway ip...it works
regards
Thank you for your post on VMware Communities.
Please refer to the the below URL for DNS Requirements for the vCenter Server Appliance
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-24D34C53-B00E-47B7...
Before you deploy the vCenter Server appliance with a static IP address, you must verify that this IP address has a valid internal domain name system (DNS) registration.
You can also refer to the below article which discusses, "Is a DNS server still required when using a Static IP for VCSA?"
Arun Kumar
Install Upgrade Specialist
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@VMAKS ... If I review both of the provided links, the implication is that I do not need a DNS if I fill in both static IP and hostname fields with the statically assigned IP address, and that the DNS Server entry points to a default gateway that responds with failure quickly.
Is that a correct interpretation / path forward?
Because, if so, your comment, "Before you deploy the vCenter Server appliance with a static IP address, you must verify that this IP address has a valid internal domain name system (DNS) registration." is a little confusing. Is there a different requirement for addressing existing components (e.g. the ESXi and current vCenter) via their known Static IP and then also having a resolvable DNS entry for the "new vCenter" being upgraded to? Please clarify?
Secondly, how does this paragraph relate to that understanding ...
"Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and all vSphere Client instances. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all ESXi hosts and vSphere Client."
Would it also be the case that if my 3 ESXi servers are configured likewise, with all host fields set to the static IP addresses, that any vCenter Appliance Upgrade scripting and ESXi Upgrades (via CD-ROM booth method) would also succeed w/o a DNS FQDN resolution required?
This is really going to help me ... as I can't seem to find a company resource that can add to our existing DNS listings ... thanks for your help.
@Jimmy15 you're probably saying the same thing as that article mentioned below ... but in very 'short-hand'. I'm not a network engineer or a sys admin ... so things really need to be clearly spelled out for me. I write software ... and I use computers ... but I don't do a lot of "IT". Thanks for your input. It give me hope at least 😉
I came across the same issue and invested good time...which accommodate in a line today 🙂 ..good luck..
Don't forget to give Kudos , if solution worth it.
regards