VCSA and only have one ESXi host to Upgrade from 6.5 to 6.7

[DDub10]

Wondering how to upgrade my host from ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 with vcsa with Update Manager if my vcsa appliance is on the host that I am updating. I have only one host at this particular site. Im not certain how to perform the upgrade if the host has to be maintenance mode.

Would I have to migrate vcsa to a remote site in order for it to work? Would I have to use the CLI to update... Or there there a path with the vcsa on the same host. Help Please 🙂

[Lalegre]

Hey @DDub10,

So the answer is simple, you cannot upgrade an ESXi that holds the Update Manager server if you cannot move it as it needs complete connectivity during the process.

What you can do is updating it by updating the offline bundle into a datastore (even the local one) or the ESXi OS and use ESXCLI as shown in the next procedure: https://miketabor.com/how-to-upgrade-esxi-6-5-to-esxi-6-7/

[DDub10]

Attempted the in place update from the command provided but encountering an error. Unsure what it means. I've attempted using earlier 6.7 versions such as update 2, but same error occurs... The version Im using is the  custom ISO (offline bundle) for my DellEMC server. My current ESXi version is 6.5.0 Update 2 (Build 10175896)

[DependencyError]
VIB VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.7.0-3.132.17167734 requires esx-update << 6.7.0-3.133, but the requirement cannot be satisfied within the ImageProfile.
VIB VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.7.0-3.132.17167734 requires esx-update >= 6.7.0-3.132, but the requirement cannot be satisfied within the ImageProfile.
Please refer to the log file for more details.

[a_p_]

Some questions:

• Which offline bundle (full name) do you use? Consider to use the vendor customized image, if your HW vendor provides on, because it contains additional drivers that may be required.
• Does the server contain hardware which requires additional drivers, that are not included in the offline bundle that you are using?
• What exact command line do you use for the upgrade?

André

[DDub10]

@a_p_ 

TEh Full offline bundle is "VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.7.0.update03-17167734.x86_64-DellEMC_Customized-A08" 

The server harware to my knowledge should not require additional drivers (DELL EMC Server and Dell Storage array) 

The command line used is "esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORE/VMware-ESXi-6.7.0-8169922-depot.zip"  where DATASTORE is my datastore name...

My current profile is

DellEMC-ESXi-6.5U2-10175896-A06
Name: DellEMC-ESXi-6.5U2-10175896-A06
Vendor: Dell
Creation Time: 2019-01-31T01:48:39
Modification Time: 2019-01-31T01:50:36
Stateless Ready: False

THANKS MUCH FOR THE ASSISTANCE

[a_p_]

That's not exactly the right command to perform a version upgrade.

Assuming that you've verified that your hardware is supported, the following commands may be used after placing the host into Maintenance Mode:

1.) Find out the profile name:
esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORE/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.7.0.update03-17167734.x86_64-DellEMC_Customized-A08.zip

2.) Run the upgrade
esxcli software profile install -d /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORE/VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.7.0.update03-17167734.x86_64-DellEMC_Customized-A08.zip -p <profile name from step 1>

3.) Reboot the host
Once the upgrade completes with a "Successful" result, run reboot to restart the host.

You may want to run the upgrade command in step 2 with an additional --dry-run argument first, to find out what the upgrade will do. It may also be required that you append --ok-to-remove in case there are some old vibs installed which are not  part of the new profile.
If you do have additional drivers/tools installed, consider to use update instead of install in step 2.

André