VMware vSphere 6 – Manually upgrading vSphere 6.0 to vSphere 6.0 Update 2 with ease

Caution: Articles written for technical not grammatical accuracy, If poor grammar offends you proceed with caution ;-)

You have read all the announcements about vSphere 6.0 Update 2 being released and now you want to upgrade.  Maybe you haven’t tried out the embedded web ui and are tired on needing to use the thick client when your VC goes down.  Whatever the reason applying the update is pretty easy and straight forward.

Updating vCenter Appliance

First things first we need to upgrade vCenter to Update 2.  To do this manually you will first need to download the vSphere patch iso VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.0.0.20000-3634791-patch-FP.iso from myvmware.  Once you have downloaded the iso simply follow these steps to apply the update:

1. Snapshot your vCenter Appliance VM
2. Mount the iso to the vCenter Appliance VM
3. SSH to the vCenter server console as root
4. Run the following command (DO NOT enter the shell):
   • software-packages –iso –acceptEulas
5. Reboot the appliance by typing: shutdown reboot –r update2
6. Remove the Snapshot

That’s if for updating the vCenter Appliance.  Wait for vCenter to fully come back back up and then proceed below to update your vSphere hosts.

Updating vSphere(ESXi) Hosts

Ok so your vCenter server is updated and back up and running.  Now it’s time to update you vSphere(ESXi) hosts.  Follow the below steps for each vSphere host in your environment:

1. Place the host in maintenance mode
2. SSh to the host console of the host.  (If you haven’t enabled SSH on the host, go to the console, login, go to Troubleshooting Options, then Enable SSH)
3. Enable the httpClient to get to the web by configuring in the web UI or entering the following command at the ssh console:
   • esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient
4. Run the following to download and install the update:
   • esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.0.0-20160302001-standard -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml
5. Once completed remove the firewall rule you enabled either in the ui or by running the following command:
   • esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r httpClient
6. Next type reboot to reboot the server
7. Finally take the server out of maintenance mode.
8. Repeat for all servers

Now that you have updated your servers you can go to https://{serverFQDN}/ui to utilize the built in web management for the server.  Having a web ui built in to the host kinda reminds me of the vSphere 2.x days.  I rather miss those days.