Manual Upgrade ESXi from 6.7 to 8.0

Be­fore de­ploy­ing a host up­grade, en­sure that all vir­tual ma­chines in this host should be shut down and Back Up VMware ESXi Host Configuration.

• Download the upgrade file from VMware Official

There are two types of up­grade files

• The .iso is bootable and follows instructions.
• The .zip is upgraded via SSH using CLI commands.

In this sce­nario, I use Of­fline Bun­dle (.zip) to up­grade host.

Run­ning ESXi 6.7U(1-3) or ESXi 7.0U(1-3), you can up­grade di­rectly from these ver­sions to ESXi 8.0.

From: Product Interoperability Matrix (vmware.com)

Up­load the up­grade file(ESXi670-201912001.zip) to a data­s­tore

The file lo­ca­tion: /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/ESXi670-201912001.zip

En­able SSH Ser­vice

Put the node into main­te­nance mode

con­nect to the con­sole via SSH.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

View the im­age pro­files

Con­nect to the con­sole via SSH and run the fol­low­ing com­mand to check the im­age pro­file.

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/ESXi670-201912001.zip

Com­pared to the ex­ist­ing im­age pro­file ESXi-6.7.0-8169922-standard (VMware, Inc.), the up­grade pro­file name ESXi-6.7.0-20191204001-standard should be se­lected.

Run the up­grade and ap­pend the pro­file name (ESXi-6.7.0-20191204001-standard) at the end of the com­mand.

esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/ESXi670-201912001.zip -p ESXi-6.7.0-20191204001-standard

When see­ing the mes­sage: The Update completed successfully

The up­grade is com­pleted and a reboot is re­quired for the changes to take ef­fect.

Fi­nally, exit main­te­nance mode in the node af­ter re­boot.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

Up­load the up­grade file(VMware-ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-depot.zip) to a data­s­tore

The file lo­ca­tion: /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-depot.zip

En­able SSH Ser­vice

Put the node into main­te­nance mode

con­nect to the con­sole via SSH.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

View the im­age pro­files

Con­nect to the con­sole via SSH and run the fol­low­ing com­mand to check the im­age pro­file.

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-depot.zip

Com­pared to the ex­ist­ing im­age pro­file (Updated) ESXi-6.7.0-20191204001-standard (VMware, Inc.), the up­grade pro­file name ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-standard should be se­lected.

Run the up­grade and ap­pend the pro­file name (ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-standard) at the end of the com­mand.

esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-depot.zip -p ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-standard

When see­ing the mes­sage: The Update completed successfully

The up­grade is com­pleted and a reboot is re­quired for the changes to take ef­fect.

Fi­nally, exit main­te­nance mode in the node af­ter re­boot.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

Up­load the up­grade file(VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip) to a data­s­tore

The file lo­ca­tion: /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip

En­able SSH Ser­vice

Put the node into main­te­nance mode

con­nect to the con­sole via SSH.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

View the im­age pro­files

Con­nect to the con­sole via SSH and run the fol­low­ing com­mand to check the im­age pro­file.

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip

Com­pared to the ex­ist­ing im­age pro­file (Updated) ESXi-7.0U3g-20328353-standard (VMware, Inc.), the up­grade pro­file name ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard should be se­lected.

If the RAM ca­pac­ity not match the min­i­mum re­quires, the up­grade will be failed.

So, I Up­grade the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB

Run the up­grade and ap­pend the pro­file name (ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard) at the end of the com­mand.

esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/63abe767-b0668188-650d-005056b5b2ef/VMware-ESXi-8.0-20513097-depot.zip -p ESXi-8.0.0-20513097-standard

When see­ing the mes­sage: The Update completed successfully

The up­grade is com­pleted and a reboot is re­quired for the changes to take ef­fect.

Fi­nally, exit main­te­nance mode in the node af­ter re­boot.

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

Us­ing the com­mand line in­ter­face to Up­grade by ES­X­CLI. This method can be used for stand­alone ESXi hosts and ESXi hosts man­aged by vCen­ter.