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I want to upgrade my esxi 4.1 to 5.1. Having not much experience with it I'm having problems to have VUM between my plugins listed. I have been downloading the iso image(5.1) but won't install,says that is a version issue problem, On the other side I can't download the iso for version 4.1. What for alternatives do I have to upgrade my esxi host? The machine needs to be upgraded remotely

2 Answers 2

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4.1 can be upgraded to 5.1 under certain conditions. Was the 4.1 system originally built as 4.1, or was it upgraded from something like 3.5?

VMware outlines all of the upgrade paths and methods here.

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Your best approach is to boot the remote host with the 5.1 DVD (or .ISO).

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  • The system was built originally with 4.1. Is there no way to update remotely? Is quite faraway the server. If I try to download the iso from vmware I get the following message We are activating your licensing key entitlement, re-try your download soon and is like tahat for 2 days
    – fefe
    Mar 15, 2013 at 13:50
  • You can download ESXi 5 from the VMware site. If in doubt, just download the trial until license things get sorted. You will need some means of inserting the disk, though. If these are remote servers, I'll assume you have IPMI/ILO/DRAC or some remote media option. If not, get someone to physically insert a DVD.
    – ewwhite
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:23
  • if I would share a mounted drive on my internal network would be possible to boot my esxi from it
    – fefe
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:40
  • Depends on your server.
    – ewwhite
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:42
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Do you really need to upgrade to 5.1? If this is part of a cluster, just take it out of the cluster and do a fresh install.

If your VMs are stored on different storage (partition or SAN) then if you aren't worried about uptime, then you can just install 5.1 over the top of 4.1 and then configure the Host and add the VMs from the untouched storage.

If this is a standalone machine, do you need 5.1 at all - do you need any features or bug fixes?

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  • this one is a standalone machine all my vm's are migrated so I don't face downtime. The problem what we have here is that the machine cpu usage is extremely high and we thought that an upgrade would help on the performance. I know that using a boot dvd I could install an update but the machine is like 600km faraway.
    – fefe
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:26
  • If the CPU usage is worryingly high when running VMs on the server, then an upgrade probably won't help - you are simply pushing the host too far. If it is running high with no VMs running on it, then you have serious problems!
    – dunxd
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:31
  • I have all the machines switched off, so far looks good
    – fefe
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:32
  • I feel your pain on the distance issue - I look after hosts that are even more remote. But if you really need to do some maintenance of that host then it probably justifies either going there in person, or shipping a slot in replacement.
    – dunxd
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:33
  • yes I think is the only solution what I could come up
    – fefe
    Mar 15, 2013 at 14:36

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