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85 lines
No EOL
5.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Upgrading a Standalone vSphere Host With esxcli" # Title of the blog post.
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date: 2022-10-15T07:19:24-05:00 # Date of post creation.
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# lastmod: 2022-10-14T07:19:24-05:00 # Date when last modified
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description: "Using esxcli to upgrade a vSphere host from ESXi 7.x to 8.0." # Description used for search engine.
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featured: false # Sets if post is a featured post, making appear on the home page side bar.
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draft: false # Sets whether to render this page. Draft of true will not be rendered.
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toc: true # Controls if a table of contents should be generated for first-level links automatically.
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usePageBundles: true
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# menu: main
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featureImage: "esxi8.png" # Sets featured image on blog post.
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# featureImageAlt: 'Description of image' # Alternative text for featured image.
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# featureImageCap: 'This is the featured image.' # Caption (optional).
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# thumbnail: "thumbnail.png" # Sets thumbnail image appearing inside card on homepage.
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# shareImage: "share.png" # Designate a separate image for social media sharing.
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codeLineNumbers: false # Override global value for showing of line numbers within code block.
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series: Tips # Projects, Code, vRA8
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tags:
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- vmware
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- homelab
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- vsphere
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comments: true # Disable comment if false.
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---
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You may have heard that there's a new vSphere release out in the wild - [vSphere 8, which just reached Initial Availability this week](https://advocacy.vmware.com/Article/Redirect/9cfbc1b1-207f-4885-a520-cc0bfafcd6c0?uc=197618&g=2d17264e-593a-492d-8d91-3a2155e835f1&f=3104867). Upgrading the vCenter in my single-host homelab is a very straightforward task, and using the included Lifecycle Manager would make quick work of patching a cluster of hosts... but things get a little trickier with a single host. I could write the installer ISO to a USB drive, boot the host off of that, and go through the install interactively, but what if physical access to the host is kind of inconvenient?
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The other option for upgrading a host is using the `esxcli` command to apply an update from an offline bundle. It's a pretty easy solution (and can even be done remotely, such as when connected to [my homelab](/vmware-home-lab-on-intel-nuc-9) via the [Tailscale node running on my Quartz64 ESXi-ARM host](/esxi-arm-on-quartz64/#installing-tailscale)) *but I always forget the commands.*
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So here's quick note on how I upgraded my lone ESXi to the new ESXi 8 IA release so that maybe I'll remember how to do it next time and won't have to go [Neeva](https://neeva.com/search?q=upgrade%20standalone%20host)'ing for the answer again.
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### 0: Download the offline bundle
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Downloading the Offline Bundle from [VMware Customer Connect](https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/details?downloadGroup=ESXI800&productId=1345&rPId=95214) yields a file named `VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip`.
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### 1: Transfer the bundle to the host
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I've found that the easiest way to do this it to copy it to a datastore which is accessible from the host.
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### 2. Power down VMs
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The host will need to be in maintenance mode in order to apply the upgrade, and since it's a standalone host it won't enter maintenance mode until all of its VMs have been stopped. This can be easily accomplished through the ESXi embedded host client.
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### 3. Place host in maintenance mode
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I can do that by SSH'ing to the host and running:
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```shell
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esxcli system maintenanceMode set -e true # [tl! .cmd]
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```
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And can confirm that it happened with:
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```shell
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esxcli system maintenanceMode get # [tl! .cmd]
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Enabled # [tl! .nocopy]
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```
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### 4. Identify the profile name
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Because this is an *upgrade* from one major release to another rather than a simple *update*, I need to know the name of the profile which will be applied. I can identify that with:
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```shell
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esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/nuchost-local/_Patches/VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip # [tl! .cmd]
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Name Vendor Acceptance Level Creation Time Modification Time # [tl! .nocopy:3]
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---------------------------- ------------ ---------------- ------------------- -----------------
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ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported 2022-09-23T18:59:28 2022-09-23T18:59:28
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ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-no-tools VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported 2022-09-23T18:59:28 2022-09-23T18:59:28
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```
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{{% notice note "Absolute paths" %}}
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When using the `esxcli` command to install software/updates, it's important to use absolute paths rather than relative paths. Otherwise you'll get errors and wind up chasing your tail for a while.
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{{% /notice %}}
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In this case, I'll use the `ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard` profile.
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### 5. Install the upgrade
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Now for the moment of truth:
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```shell
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esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/nuchost-local/_Patches/VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip -p ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard # [tl! .cmd]
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```
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When it finishes (successfully), it leaves a little message that the update won't be complete until the host is rebooted, so I'll go ahead and do that as well:
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```shell
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reboot # [tl! .cmd]
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```
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And then wait (oh-so-patiently) for the host to come back up.
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### 6. Resume normal operation
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Once the reboot is complete, log in to the host client to verify the upgrade was successful. You can then exit maintenance mode and start powering on the VMs again.
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The upgrade process took me about 20 minutes from start to finish, and now I'm ready to get on with exploring [what's new in vSphere 8](https://core.vmware.com/resource/whats-new-vsphere-8)! |