I have neglected my home lab over the last couple of months. So today I decided it was time to upgrade. There will be a second post that will follow. This post will show you how to upgrade the host via command line.
Note: Make sure that your vCenter is at or above the current version of ESXi that you are upgrading.
Prerequisites
- ensured your ESXi 6.X host has a working internet connection
- reviewed the release notes
- backed up the ESXi 6.X install/configuration
The ESXCLI upgrade method is that is very convenient, and you don’t have to worry about downloading the ESXi image from the VMware website:
Name: VMware-VMvisor-Installer-6.5.0.4564106.x86_64.iso
Release Date: 2016-11-15
Build Number: 4564106
The Upgrade process
- Open an SSH session to the host. If the connection fails, make sure the SSH service is enabled on the ESXi host,
- Put the host maintenance mode
- Copy the command below into the ssh window, this could take some time depending on your internet connection:
esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.5.0-4564106-standard -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
- Exit Maintenance Mode
- Once the command completes, reboot the updated ESXi server.
- After the host has rebooted, open a browser to the IP address of the update ESXi host.
All done, enjoy the ease of this update.