Upgrade ESXi 6.5 using CLI command in seconds

[Mohamed Fouad]

Hello,
You could upgrade ESXi in few seconds using CLI commands.

Please use offline bundle of ESXi version 6.5 , you could upload it directly to one of datastores or attach it as ISO file to console and then copy it to datastore.

1. after attach ISO to CD, then mount it in ESX via CLI.
To find the device reference of your CDROM:
esxcfg-mpath -l
Example output:

ide.vmhba32-ide.0:0-mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
   Runtime Name: vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
   Device: mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
   Device Display Name: Local TEAC CD-ROM (mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0)
    State: active
   Transport: ide

Load the iso9660 module with this command:
vmkload_mod iso9660

Mount the CDROM using the device determined earlier with esxcfg-mpath -l:
/sbin/vsish -e set /vmkModules/iso9660/mount mpx.vmhba32:C0:T0:L0
The CDROM will be mounted under /vmfs/volumes/ [CDROM Label] /



2. You need to know the ISO profile using below command

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.5.0-20170702001-standard -d /vmfs/volumes/SCSIDatastore1/UPDATE~1.ZIP

You will find output like below
Name                              Vendor        Acceptance Level
--------------------------------  ------------  ----------------
ESXi-6.5.0-20170701001s-no-tools  VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported
ESXi-6.5.0-20170702001-no-tools   VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported
ESXi-6.5.0-20170701001s-standard  VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported
ESXi-6.5.0-20170702001-standard   VMware, Inc.  PartnerSupported

Choose the Standard one.

3. now you will run the command to perform the upgrade.

esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.5.0-20170702001-standard -d /vmfs/volumes/SCSIDatastore1/UPDATE~1.ZIP

Hold for 3 minutes and all will be done, ESXi will be rebooted. be patient for few minutes then when you see ESXi is up via console, you may need to reconnect the ESXi from Web client.

On other side, if Vcenter is Appliance version and have any issues in viewing right status you could reboot all services from its console as below.

service-control --start --all

and this reboots all Linux services for refresh the VCenter services, note this make web client down for few minutes.