Upgraded home lab from ESXi 6.7 => ESXi 7.0u3 with no issues

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dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
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I first tried the ISO upgrade method but that failed as expected (some issue where it doesn't play well with updates done via the online method.) So I created a temporary baseline called 'upgrade from 6.7 to 7.0' lol. Applied it to all 3 machines with no issues. Well, there was one on all 3hosts that the compliance check flagged. Older out support nics (pro/1000). Wasn't actually using those on 2 of them (they were there from a previous experiment.) I did need on the 3rd host, since the LAN had 2 NICs in a LACP.) For the moment, I pulled the pro/1000 and was ok on the upgrade. Was trying to figure out a 1-2 port 1gb intel nic that IS on the 7.0 HCL. Then I found a forum where someone mentioned the issue is that the ne1000 driver is disabled by default, so I enabled the ne1000 driver, shut down, re-added that card and rebooted.) Lo and behold! There be my NIC :) If they completely remove support down the road, I'll deal with that when I need to. Oh, yeah, the VCSA was a fresh 7.0 install from several months ago, so I'm all 7.0 now. Thank God for VMUG. BTW, I must say that upgrades/patches like this are way more convenience than downloading vibs and trying to install them without stepping on my male apparatus :)
 
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BennyT

Active Member
Dec 1, 2018
166
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Cool. me too. I upgraded ESXi from 6.7u1 to 7.0u3c a couple weekends ago and VCSA to v.7.0.3.00300 (vcsa 7.0u3c). Then two days later 7.0u3d came out.

Did you go to u3c or u3d? I'm still at u3c and I get the banner in vcsa that there is an update available every time I login to vcsa. It takes all of my will power to resist upgrading again. Think I'll wait a couple months. They are really pushing us to upgrade as soon as an update comes out with that stupid banner each time I login.
 

SecCon

Arkham Asylum Server Mgmt
May 26, 2022
275
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Having unsupported CPU's, I hate the upgrade scripts/cmds. Not only do they vary between versions (esxcli update switches) but I have never been able to properly implement the AllowLegacyCPU=True switch, or, in CLI, the ignore hardware warnings switch.

(I even edited the PRECHECK.PY file, commenting out all the CPU checks, but it still did those and I don't get where it got that code since it was commented out, damn sneaky stuff.)

So I just put the updated ISO on a USB and go to the machine, hit Ctrl+O, type AllowLegacyCPU=True and upgrade goes fine.

I realize this is probably only a viable solution for those who have few ESXi machines (I have 2) and have those physically available.

Over time I have updated my machines with every patch since 6.7.
 
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