Upgrading ESXi from 6.7 U3 to 7.0

There are two ways you can upgrade ESXi hosts:
– Upgrading ESXi using ESXCLI
– Upgrading ESXi via VMware LifeCycle Manager.
VMware Update Manager has been replaced with VMware Lifecycle Manager in VMware vShpere 7.0. Updating ESXi host is made easier with VMware Lifecyle Manager.

Since I just have one ESXi host running vCSA, VMs and the nested ESXi hosts, I will have to shutdown vCenter and the VMs. I will use ESXCLI to upgrade the bare metal ESXi host and use VMware Lifecycle Manager to upgrade the nested ESXi hosts.

Upgrading ESXi host using ESXCLI

  1. Take a backup of ESXi host configuration
  2. Download the ESXi 7 offline bundle zip file
  1. Upload the VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-depot to datastore accessible to the ESXi host.
  1. Make sure you shut down all the VMs and vCSA on the host.
  2. Place the ESXi host on maintenance mode.
  3. SSH into the ESXi host using any SSH Terminal Client.
  4. First get the image profile from the depot file
[root@esxi:~] esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes
/SFF-STORAGE/Software/VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-depot.zip
Name                          Vendor        Acceptance Level
 Creation Time        Modification Time
----------------------------  ------------  ----------------  
-------------------  -------------------
ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-no-tools  VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported  
2020-03-16T10:48:54  2020-03-16T10:48:54
ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-standard  VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported  
2020-03-16T10:48:54  2020-03-16T10:48:54

—————————-  ————  —————-  ——————-  ——————-

  1. Using the following command to install the upgrade. Replace “SFF-STORAGE/Software” with the name of your datastore and folder where you uploaded your .zip file
[root@esxi:~] esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes
/SFF-STORAGE/Software/VMware-ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-depot.zip -p
 ESXi-7.0.0-15843807-standard
  1. Once the installation is completed, reboot the host.
reboot
  1. Once the host has been rebooted successfully, take it out of Maintenance Mode. Power on the vCSA.

Upgrading ESXi using VMware Lifecycle Manager

  1. Create a New Basline. Import the ESXi 7.0 ISO using VMware Lifecyle Manager

Choose Imported ISOs tab and click Import ISO

Click Browse button to select the ESXi 7.0 ISO downloaded.

Browse the ESXi 7.0 ISO and click Import

Choose Baselines Tab, Click New-> Baseline

Name the baseline and make sure you choose Upgrade, Click Next, select the ISO you just uploaded and click Finish

A newly created baseline will be listed in the Baselines Section

Attach the baseline

Now attached the newly created baseline named ESXi7.0 Upgrade to the ESXi hosts. You can attache the baseline at the cluster level or to the individual host.
Select the cluster with the hosts and go to Updates section, choose Attach under Attached Baselines and select Attach Baseline or Baseline Group

Select the correct baseline and click OK to attach

Choose the attached baseline and click Check Compliance

Select the baseline and Click Remediate to proceed with the upgrade

Accept EULA and click OK

VMware Lifecycle Manger will list all the hosts in the cluster before upgrading. Click on Remediate

Lifecycle Manager will put each host in the cluster into maintenance mode and upgrade it. When it is done upgrading, you can look at the ESXi host version

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