How to easily update your VMware server to ESXi 6.0 Update 1b

If you don't have a commercial VMware license, and instead are using a trial, free, or EVALExperience ESXi 6.0 or ESXi 6.0 Update 1, you won't be able to easily download the 6.0 Update 1b ISO directly. You're not entitled. Silly, I know. Worry not though, since this article has you covered. Takes about 10 minutes total. Basically you paste two commands, wait for the automated download and patch process, then finish up with a host reboot.

Important Note - update your vCSA before your ESXi!

FYI, you are supposed to update your vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) before you update your ESXi hosts, for the reasons VMware explains here, and William Lam here. Here's the easy (published Jan 12 2016) way to do it, detailed at TinkerTry:

• How to easily update your VMware vCenter Server Appliance to vCSA 6.0 Update 1b

Backstory

The command syntax for updating ESXi 6.0 was easily figured out, thanks to prior work by Andreas Peetz and William Lam!

Before you begin, you'll first need to carefully review William Lam's warning:

Disclaimer: This method assumes you can install the default ESXi Image Profile with no additional drivers or packages, else you may have connectivity issue after the upgrade. If you still need to customize the ESXi Image Profile before installation, you will still need to use something like Image Builder and then upload that to your online depot.

...and Andreas Peetz warning:

Important note: Before doing this please check whether you rely on one of the NIC drivers (e.g. Realtek) that were blacklisted in ESXi 6.0. You then need to carry out an additional step before doing the upgrade - see my earlier post (section 2) for details.

For my SuperServer Workstation, I didn't have to worry about VIBs: the stock drivers built into 6.0 are all I need to succeed. Even if I do need AHCI or NVMe VIBs in the future, I can just re-add such VIBs after similar future upgrades, or even inject them into a custom ISO.

What's convenient about the below method is that you don't have to worry about separately downloading the ESXi ISO:

Name: VMware-VMvisor-Installer-201601001-3380124.x86_64.iso
Release Date: 2016-01-07
Build Number: 3380124

Download and apply the 6.0 Update 1b patch directly from the VMware Online Depot

1. Open an SSH session (PuTTY) to your ESXi 6.0 (or ESXi 6.0 Update 1) server
   (if you forgot to enable SSH, here's how)
2. Put your system into maintenance mode, or ensure you've set your ESXi host to automatically gracefully shutdown all VMs upon host reboot
3. Paste the following 2 commands (cut-and-paste one line at a time):

   esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient
   esxcli software profile update -p ESXi-6.0.0-20160104001-standard -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

4. Optionally, if you wish to return the firewall status to how it was before you began this procedure, paste:

   esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e false -r httpClient

5. If you turned on maintenance mode earlier, remember to turn it back off now.

6. Type "reboot" and hit return (to restart your ESXi server).

7. Download and install VMware vSphere Client 6.0 Update 1b. If you have a prior 6.x version on your Windows system that's doing administration, this will automatically upgrade it. Download here:
   VMware-viclient-all-6.0.0-3249451.exe

8. After the reboot is done, it would be a good idea to test login using both the vSphere Client and the vSphere Web Client, to be sure everthing seems to be working right.

You're done!

Special thanks to VMware ESXi Patch Tracker by Andreas Peetz at the VMware Front Experience Blog.

That's it! When the reboot is complete, you'll see for yourself that you now have the latest ESXi, Build 3380124, as pictured above. Now you have more spare time to read more TinkerTry articles!

By the way, you could use VMware Update Manager on a Windows system or VM, but for one-off upgrades typical in a small home lab, pasting these 2 lines of code is pretty easy.

Video

Alernative method (not really simpler, just different)

• Upgrading ESXi itself is now possible with the new Embedded Host Client v4

Update Jan 08 2016

Just in case it's of interest, right after my successful upgrade from ESXi 6.0 Update 1a to Update 1b, it echos all the VIBs that were installed, removed, and skipped. Figured I'd do a cut-and-paste for you, right from the PuTTY session you see pictured above. Just in case you're upgrade-curious, and wondering if your driver package would be touched.

If you do a Browser Ctrl+F for NVMe, you'll notice that there does seem to be a new NVMe driver listed below installed called:
VMware_bootbank_nvme_1.0e.0.35-1vmw.600.1.17.3029758

Should be interesting to see if performance has changed, see also the recent, closely-related TinkerTry article:

• VMware ESXi 6.0 Windows 10 VM speed comparison between Intel 750 Series NVMe SSD and Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD

and many other NVMe articles.

Update Result:

Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
Reboot Required: true

VIBs Installed:

VMware_bootbank_ehci-ehci-hcd_1.0-3vmw.600.1.26.3380124, VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.0.0-1.26.3380124, VMware_bootbank_lsi-mr3_6.605.08.00-7vmw.600.1.17.3029758, VMware_bootbank_lsi-msgpt3_06.255.12.00-8vmw.600.1.17.3029758, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-mpt2sas-plugin_1.0.0-4vmw.600.1.17.3029758, VMware_bootbank_misc-drivers_6.0.0-1.26.3380124, VMware_bootbank_net-e1000e_3.2.2.1-1vmw.600.1.26.3380124, VMware_bootbank_net-tg3_3.131d.v60.4-2vmw.600.1.26.3380124, VMware_bootbank_nvme_1.0e.0.35-1vmw.600.1.17.3029758, VMware_bootbank_sata-ahci_3.0-22vmw.600.1.17.3029758, VMware_bootbank_vsanhealth_6.0.0-3000000.2.0.1.17.2972216, VMware_bootbank_xhci-xhci_1.0-3vmw.600.1.26.3380124, VMware_locker_tools-light_6.0.0-1.26.3380124

VIBs Removed:

VMware_bootbank_ehci-ehci-hcd_1.0-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_esx-base_6.0.0-0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_lsi-mr3_6.605.08.00-6vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lsi-msgpt3_06.255.12.00-7vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-mpt2sas-plugin_1.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_misc-drivers_6.0.0-0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_net-e1000e_2.5.4-6vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-tg3_3.131d.v60.4-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_nvme_1.0e.0.35-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-ahci_3.0-21vmw.600.0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_xhci-xhci_1.0-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_locker_tools-light_6.0.0-0.11.2809209

VIBs Skipped:

VMWARE_bootbank_mtip32xx-native_3.8.5-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-amd_0.3.10-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-atiixp_0.4.6-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-cmd64x_0.2.5-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-hpt3x2n_0.3.4-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-pdc2027x_1.0-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-serverworks_0.4.3-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-sil680_0.4.8-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ata-pata-via_0.3.3-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_block-cciss_3.6.14-10vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_cpu-microcode_6.0.0-0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_elxnet_10.2.309.6v-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_emulex-esx-elxnetcli_10.2.309.6v-0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_esx-dvfilter-generic-fastpath_6.0.0-0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_esx-tboot_6.0.0-0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_esx-xserver_6.0.0-0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ima-qla4xxx_2.02.18-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ipmi-ipmi-devintf_39.1-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ipmi-ipmi-msghandler_39.1-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ipmi-ipmi-si-drv_39.1-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lpfc_10.2.309.8-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lsu-hp-hpsa-plugin_1.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-lsi-mr3-plugin_1.0.0-2vmw.600.0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-lsi-msgpt3-plugin_1.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-megaraid-sas-plugin_1.0.0-2vmw.600.0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_lsu-lsi-mptsas-plugin_1.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_misc-cnic-register_1.78.75.v60.7-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-bnx2_2.2.4f.v60.10-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-bnx2x_1.78.80.v60.12-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-cnic_1.78.76.v60.13-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-e1000_8.0.3.1-5vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-enic_2.1.2.38-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-forcedeth_0.61-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-igb_5.0.5.1.1-5vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-ixgbe_3.7.13.7.14iov-20vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-mlx4-core_1.9.7.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-mlx4-en_1.9.7.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-nx-nic_5.0.621-5vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_net-vmxnet3_1.1.3.0-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_nmlx4-core_3.0.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_nmlx4-en_3.0.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_nmlx4-rdma_3.0.0.0-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_ohci-usb-ohci_1.0-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_qlnativefc_2.0.12.0-5vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_rste_2.0.2.0088-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-ata-piix_2.12-10vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-sata-nv_3.5-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-sata-promise_2.12-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-sata-sil24_1.1-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-sata-sil_2.3-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_sata-sata-svw_2.3-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-aacraid_1.1.5.1-9vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-adp94xx_1.0.8.12-6vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-aic79xx_3.1-5vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-bnx2fc_1.78.78.v60.8-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-bnx2i_2.78.76.v60.8-1vmw.600.0.11.2809209, VMware_bootbank_scsi-fnic_1.5.0.45-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-hpsa_6.0.0.44-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-ips_7.12.05-4vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-megaraid-mbox_2.20.5.1-6vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-megaraid-sas_6.603.55.00-2vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-megaraid2_2.00.4-9vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-mpt2sas_19.00.00.00-1vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-mptsas_4.23.01.00-9vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-mptspi_4.23.01.00-9vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_scsi-qla4xxx_5.01.03.2-7vmw.600.0.0.2494585, VMware_bootbank_uhci-usb-uhci_1.0-3vmw.600.0.0.2494585

Update Jan 12 2016

Now available, step-by-step with video:

• How to update your VMware vCenter Appliance to vCSA 6.0 Update 1b the easy way

Update Jan 13 2016

If you're upgrading to 6.0U1b and already have some VM templates built on an earlier release, you'll want to read this:

• Heads Up! Do Not Upgrade VMware Tools on Hosts with ESXi 6.0 U1b

Here's the VMware Tools 10.0.5 download site:

• my.vmware.com/web/vmware/details?downloadGroup=VMTOOLS1005&productId=491

See also at TinkerTry

• Superguide: VMware vSphere

• Download/Install or Upgrade VMware vCSA/ESXi 6.0 Update 1b
  Jan 07 2016

• VMware vSphere 6.0 is now generally available, here’s how to download it fast
  Mar 12 2015

• VMTN reincarnated! EVALExperience is to VMware Professionals what MSDN/TechNet is to Microsoft Professionals.
  Jan 15 2015

• How to safely patch your vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 (vCSA)
  Jul 13 2015

• Problems downloading VMware vSphere VMware vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1c Appliance
  Aug 04 2014
  More info for those who get the dreaded:

  You either are not entitled or do not have permissions to download this product.
  Check with your My VMware Super User, Procurement Contact or Administrator.

See also

• Upgrading ESXi itself is now possible with the new Embedded Host Client v4
  Dec 12 2015 by William Lam at virtuallyGhetto