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Can I Upgrade ESXi 6.0 Beta/RC to ESXi 6.0 GA?

There are many 6.0 Beta and RC versions running at the moment. With the vSphere 6.0 going GA today a question came up on upgrading Beta software to GA software.

From the vSphere Documentation, this upgrade is not supported:

You can upgrade an ESXi 5.0.x, ESXi 5.1.x, ESXi 5.5.0, or ESXi 5.5.х host directly to 6.0.

supported-upgrade-esxi-60

Despite it is unsupported, you can actually upgrade ESXi 6.0 RC to ESXi 6.0 GA. I would not recommend doing this in production, but it works:

  1. Download ESXi Offline Bundle (VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-depot.zip)
  2. Copy VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-depot.zip to a datastore
  3. Verify version (This is 6.0 RC)
    [root@esx1:~] vmware -v
    VMware ESXi 6.0.0 build-2159203
  4. Determine Image Profile from the Offline Bundle
    [root@esx1:~] esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/WD3000/iso/VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-depot.zip
    Name Vendor Acceptance Level
    --------------------------- ------------ ----------------
    ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-no-tools VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported
    ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-standard VMware, Inc. PartnerSupported
  5. Replace the Image Profile (Fails)
    [root@esx1:~] esxcli software profile install -d /vmfs/volumes/WD3000/iso/VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-depot.zip -p ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-standard
     [Exception]
     You attempted to install an image profile which would have resulted in the removal of VIBs ['VMware_bootbank_net-ixgbe-next_3.15.1.8-1vmw.600.0.0.2159203']. If this is not what you intended, you may use the esxcli software profile update command to preserve the VIBs above. If this is what you intended, please use the --ok-to-remove option to explicitly allow the removal.
     Please refer to the log file for more details.
  6. Append --ok-to-remove
    [root@esx1:~] esxcli software profile install -d /vmfs/volumes/WD3000/iso/VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-depot.zip -p ESXi-6.0.0-2494585-standard --ok-to-remove
    Installation Result
      Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
      Reboot Required: true
    [...]
  7. Reboot

ESXi comes up with the GA version and the config is still in place. Please remember that this upgrade path is unsupported.esxi-60-RC-to-GA-upgrade

 

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