Upgrading vCenter Appliance (vCSA) and ESXi 6.5 to 6.7

This article is for upgrading vCenter Appliance and ESXi 6.5 to 6.7 on internet disconnected environment. Login to https://my.wmware.com/    and download the following two files:

  1. VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-8546234.iso
  2. VMware-ESXi-6.7.0-8169922-depot.zip

Always upgrade the vCenter Appliance first and the ESXi hosts.

Upgrading vCenter Appliance, following are the steps:

  1. Mount the VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-8546234.iso on your local windows machine and run the installer.exe under vcsa-ui-installer\win32
  2. Dialog box will present with multiple choices appear. Choose Upgrade optionThe upgrade option will deploy a new 6.7 vCSA and peform the data and configuration migration from the older 6.5 appliance and when done it will power down the old appliance when upgrade is completed.The upgrade option will deploy a new 6.7 vCSA and peform the data and configuration migration from the older 6.5 appliance and when done it will power down the old appliance when upgrade is completed.
  3. Click Next
  4. Accept EULA
  5. Provide the FQDN of the source 6.5 vCenter Server and choose Connect To Source
  6. If the Connect To Source from the above step is successful, you will then be asked to enter the SSO details and the details of ESXi host where the old 6.5 appliance is running.
  7. You will get a certificate warning where you choose Yes
  8. In this dialog box, provide the target ESXi host where you want to install 6.7 appliance and the credential. The upgrade will maintain the original FQDN name of the VCSA.
  9. Again you will be prompted with certificate warning, choose Yes.

  10. Provide the new appliance VM name and the root credential.
  11. Select the deployment size for the target server as per your organization’s need. Make sure it will match or is greater than the source 6.5 appliance.
  12. Select the data store when you place the new 6.7 appliance.
  13. Provide the temporary IP for the new 6.7 appliance.
  14. Choose Finish to start Stage 1 deployment after reviewing the deployment details
  15. Upgrade Stage 1 begins.
  16. Press Continue once Stage 1 is done as shown
  17. Stage 2 begins where data and configuration will be copied from source vCenter Appliance to the deployed target from Stage 1

  18. Provide the details to connect to the source vCenter Server.
  19. Make sure to disable Full DRS automation where the ESXi host resides.
  20. Review the warnings and Close

  21. Choose the type of data to be copied to the new vCenter server.
  22. Click Next below.
  23. Review the settings and click Finish.
  24. Source vCenter will be shutdown to copy the data.
  25. Choose Close

  26. In step 3 of Stage 2 – migration of data to new vCenter Server will take place. If the migration is successful,  you can access your new vCenter from the URL.

Upgrading ESXi host from 6.5 to 6.7

  1. Copy the bundle zip VMware-ESXi-6.7.0-8169922-depot.zip to the data store accessible to all hosts in the cluster.
  2. Put the ESXi host into maintenance mode. Make sure SSH service is running.
  3. SSH to the ESXi host that you want to upgrade and run the following commands. Replace the name of the data store where you copied the .zip. 
    esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/Datastore_iSCSI2/VMware-ESXi-6.7.0-8169922-depot.zip
  4. Reboot once it is done.
  5. Take our the host from maintenance mode.
Tags: , , ,