Migrate/Upgrade VCSA 6.5 Appliance to VCSA 6.7

Mindwatering Incorporated

Author: Tripp W Black

Created: 01/25/2020 at 10:04 PM

 

Category:
VMWare
vCenter

Steps:

1. Downloaded vSphere VCSA 6.7 iso.
(e.g. VMware-VCSA-all-6.7.0-15132721.iso)

2. Started MS Win10 VM w/in VMware Fusion.
Attached iso to VM.
Note:
We had a problem w/Win 10 with the process hanging at 39%, so we ended up using Diskmounter and running the Stage 1 again at step 2 above, on the Mac.

3. Opened up DVD drive to the UI installer, and ran the installer.
(e.g. This PC --> DVD Drive (D:) VMware VCSA --> vcsa-ui-installer --> win32 --> installer

- Stage 1:
4. In the Install wizard:
a. Chose the option to Upgrade, clicked Next.
b. Clicked the checkbox to Accept license, clicked Next.
c. Under Source appliance, enter the Appliance FQDN or IP address: ourvcsa.mindwatering.local. Click Connect to Source.
Upon successful connect, complete the login info:
SSO User name: administrator@vsphere.local
SSO Password: **************
Appliance (OS) root password: ************

ESXi host or vCenter Server: ourhost.mindwatering.local
HTTPS port: 443
User name: root
Password: ************

Click Next. Accept the SSL trust certificate warning by clicking Yes.
Wait while it validates the logins.

d. On the Appliance deployment target step, enter the target ESXi host information for the appliance:
(Can be same or different ESXi host.)
ESXi host or vCenter Server Name: ourhost4.mindwatering.local
HTTPS Port: 443
User name: root
Password: *********

Click Next. Accept the SSL trust certificate warning by clicking Yes.

e. On the Set up target appliance VM step, enter the credentials of the new VCSA appliance.
VM name: VCSA67
Set root password: **********
Confirm root password: **********

Click Next.

f. On the Select deployment size step, choose your deployment size:
Deployment size: Small
Storage size: Default

Click Next.

f. On the Select datastore step, choose the storage location for your new VCSA:
Name: VNAS-3
Enable Thin Disk Mode: <check as desired>

Click Next.

g. On the Configure networking settings step, choose the temporary (static) IP for the new VCSA:
Network: VMProdNW
IP version: IPv4
IP assignment: static
Temporary IP address: 10.0.12.99
Subnet mask or prefix length: 255.255.255.0
Default gateway: 10.0.12.1
DNS servers:10.0.12.1,123.12.34.45

Click Next.

h. On the Ready to complete stage 1 step, review and click Finish.

Wait for the Stage 1 to complete. This easily takes up to 10 "few" minutes.

5. At the Upgrade - Stage 1: Deploy vCenter Server Appliance with an Embedded Platform Services Controller step, with the success message.
Click Continue.

- Stage 2:
6. At the Introduction step, click Next.

7. Verify the cached information from Stage 1. Click Next to Perform the pre-flight check.
If that passes, you'll have some more minor notes, and once you click the Close button, you can continue with the rest of the wait.

If you fail, e.g. DNS reverse PTR record doesn't match, then you have to fix DNS, wait minutes/hours for it to give up the old info, and try again. It is quicker to fix the DNS issue found, and start over and this time, restrict the appliance to JUST internal DNS, so it cannot find a "bad" pointer.

Even if you have local DNS for the hostname correct, and you specify only an internal DNS. VCSA 6.7 and VCSA 7.0, both somehow use the global DNS servers to query. If you do a nslookup, it will return your local DNS. If you do a dig myvcsa.mydomain.com, dig will return the global root DNS servers. It's like dig doesn't use /etc/resolv.conf. So again, the options are to wait to do stage 2, until the external DNS is updated to the internal IP (which is bad practice), or do stage 2 by switching the VCSA to a network which doesn't have internet access but does have access to the production ESXi hosts.

If you made a mistake and missed it on summary screen, you can either start over, or fix it via SSH. SSH won't be available until after the first failure. After the first preflight failure:
Option 1: Update your DNS/IP setup using the vami_config_net program.
# /opt/vmware/share/vami/vami_config_net
or
# vi /etc.sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth0


Finally, after 30 minutes to a good hour or more, you will watch the 1 - Copy data from source vCenter to target vCenter Server finish, the 2 - Set up target vCenter Server and start services, and 3 - Import copied data to target vCenter Server, all get checked off, and you'll get the Close button.


previous page