Upgrading an ESX host(i) 4.x a ESXi 5 manually
In this document we will look at one of the ways to update our ESXi 4.x hosts (we could also migrate from ESX 4.x to ESXi 5.0 and ESX(i) 3.5 to ESXi 5), it will be in a manual/interactive way by entering the ESXi cd/dvd/usb 5.0 on the ESX host itself(i) 4.x. This is one of the simplest ways for smaller environments, In future documents we will see other forms of updates. Prior to the upgrade, we will have verified that our hosts support the new hypervisor using Agent Pre-upgrade check,
Before updating our hosts, We will carry out a Backup of your current configuration in case you have a failed upgrade.
In This document we have already seen the different ways available to perform a new installation, to perform an upgrade from an ESXi 4.x host to 5.0 we will not be able to use esxcli commands or vSphere Auto Deploy. In this document we will update an ESXi host 4.1 interactively by loading the installation from the DVD or pen drive on the host itself. Remember that when updating ESXi it will not use the GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Press 'F11' to accept the EULA,
We will select the disk where ESXi 4.x resides, with 'F1' we will see the disk details,
Logically, as always, it is recommended to disconnect this host from the SAN where the VMs reside,
En dicho disco nos detecta una instalación de ESXi y un datastore VMFS, así que tenemos tres opciones:
– Migrar a ESXi 5 manteniendo el datastore VMFS existente.
– Instalar ESXi 5 de forma limpia manteniendo el datastore VMFS existente.
– Instalar ESXi 5 de forma limpia y sobrescribir el datastore VMFS existente.
El datastore VMFS podremos actualizarlo posteriormente a VMFS5.
Nos indica que la imagen ISO que estamos utilizando no dispone ciertos drivers de nuestro actual host, deberemos buscar una imagen ISO que los contenga o se los agregaremos, si no los utilizaremos y no afectan al host podremos continuar sin ellos,
Nos informa que no se podrá realizar una vuelta atrás de esta instalación por lo que antes de proseguir estaremos seguros de tener un backup, 'F11’ to continue,
… Wait a few minutes…
And that's it, ya tendremos el host actualizado con licencia de evaluación, deberemos licenciarlo de forma correcta.
Como podremos observar también podremos realizar una migración de un host ESX 3.5, ESX 4.0 or ESX 4.1 to ESXi 5.0!
