Home Lab Upgrade: VMware vSphere and vCenter from 7.x to 8.x – Issues & Challenges

Home Lab Upgrade: VMware vSphere and vCenter from 7.x to 8.x – Issues & Challenges

Background

My home lab runs on a single Dell PowerEdge R720. The lab setup includes bare-metal ESXi 7.x installed on a USB drive. While VMware has discouraged USB-based installations for ESXi since version 7.0 Update 2 (due to reliability concerns), I’ve continued with this setup for lab purposes.

I also run nested ESXi hosts inside this environment for testing and automation exercises.

Challenges Faced

During the upgrade, I lost iDRAC access to the host (possibly due to hardware failure), eliminating the ability to use virtual media or remote console. This left me with only one viable option: upgrade the ESXi host using the offline ESXi 8.x bundle.

Also, I made the mistake of upgrading the ESXi host before upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) — something VMware explicitly advises against. This decision caused vCenter integration issues later and should be avoided in production or lab environments.

ESXi Upgrade Using Offline Bundle (via SSH)

1. Enable SSH and Place Host in Maintenance Mode

esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true

2. List Available Image Profiles

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/your_datastore/VMware-ESXi-8.0.x-buildnumber-depot.zip

Replace your_datastore and the ZIP filename accordingly. Note the desired profile (e.g., ESXi-8.0.2-22380479-standard).

3. Perform the Upgrade

esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/VMware-ESXi-8.0.2-22380479-depot.zip -p ESXi-8.0.2-22380479-standard

Tips:

  • You may encounter warnings about unsupported VIBs. Use --no-hardware-warning only if you are confident about compatibility.
  • esxcli software profile install is a more aggressive method, replacing all VIBs. Use update to preserve your configuration.

4. Reboot the Host

reboot

5. Post-Upgrade Tasks

vmware -v
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false

Reconnect the host in vCenter if needed and apply your ESXi 8.0 license.

Post-Upgrade Issues

After upgrading the ESXi host, I powered on the original vCenter 7.x appliance, but all VMs appeared as Disconnected in the vSphere Client. VM operations were disabled through vCenter, though I could manage them directly via the ESXi host UI.

Attempting to reconnect the ESXi host from vCenter resulted in a compatibility error. This confirmed that I needed to upgrade the vCenter Server to match the ESXi 8.x version.

vCenter Server Upgrade to 8.x – Tips & Gotchas

Before upgrading: Always take a full backup of the vCenter Server and a snapshot if applicable.

Upgrade Process:

  1. Mount the vCenter Server ISO.
  2. Launch the installer from: E:\vcsa-ui-installer\win32\installer.exe

Issue: Precheck Failure

“Source vSphere ESX Agent Manager (EAM) upgrade failed to obtain EAM URLs to check against trusted certificates by the System.”

Resolution: Follow Broadcom’s KB article:
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/344775

Helpful Resources:

Stuck at Stage 2?

In some cases, the upgrade hung during Stage 2 (data migration). I had to:

  • Shut down and delete the vCenter 8 VM
  • Restart the upgrade process from Stage 1

Once the upgrade completed, I reconnected the ESXi host to vCenter and resumed normal operations.

Final Notes

If you’re running nested ESXi hosts, I recommend deleting and recreating them post-upgrade to avoid compatibility or networking issues.

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