In the cloud appliances management interface, you can upgrade from VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.0 to the latest version by using an .iso image file containing the upgrade binaries that you mount to the CD-ROM drive of the virtual appliances.

Follow the updated procedure bellow when upgrading from VMware Cloud Director Availability 4.0. If you are upgrading from version 3.x to 4.0, follow the legacy Upgrade by Using an ISO Image procedure.

Prerequisites

  • Follow a strict order when upgrading the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances. For more information, see Upgrade Sequence.
  • Download the VMware-Cloud-Director-Availability-release.number.xxxxxxx-build_sha.iso file, that contains the VMware Cloud Director Availability release.number Upgrade Disk Image.

Procedure

  1. Copy the .iso file to a datastore that is accessible from the vCenter Server instance that you use with VMware Cloud Director Availability.
  2. Mount the .iso file to each of the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances.
    1. Log in to the vSphere Client on the site where you want to upgrade VMware Cloud Director Availability.
    2. On the Home page, click Hosts and Clusters.
    3. Right-click the virtual machine that hosts the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance and select Edit Settings.
    4. On the Virtual Hardware tab, select CD/DVD Drive > Datastore ISO File.
    5. Follow the prompts to add the CD/DVD drive to the VMware Cloud Director Availability virtual machine and select the Connected option.
  3. By using the cloud appliances console, mount the .iso file inside the guest operating system of each of the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances.
    1. Connect to the appliance console either by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client or by using the vSphere Client and log in as the root user.
    2. Mount the .iso file inside the guest operating system of each cloud appliance. 
      mount /mnt/cdrom
  4. Log in to the service management interface of each VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance.
    1. Open a Web browser and according to the upgrade order go to each appliance management interface address.
      Upgrade Order VMware Cloud Director Availability Appliance Management Interface Address
      First Cloud Replication Management Appliance https://Appliance-IP-Address/ui/admin
      Repeat for all instances Cloud Replicator Appliance https://Replicator-IP-Address/ui/admin
      Last Cloud Tunnel Appliance https://Tunnel-IP-Address/ui/admin
    2. Log in by using the root user credentials.
  5. In the left pane, click Configuration.
  6. Under Version, next to Product version click Check for updates.
  7. Upgrade the cloud appliance by completing the Update wizard.
    Note: Proceed with the upgrade only after taking a snapshot of the appliance.
    1. In the Repository page, select Use CDROM Updates and click Next.
    2. In the Available updates page, select an update and click Next.
    3. In the EULA Review page, to accept the end-user license agreement click Next.
    4. In the Ready for update page, click Finish and wait for the installation process to finish.
  8. After the upgrade finishes, verify that the upgrade is successful and restart the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliance.

    When the upgrade process finishes, in the left pane in System Tasks, you might see a red Update task that failed with messages like Operation aborted due to an unexpected error or Task aborted due to service reboot, while the upgrade is successful.

    1. Connect to the appliance console either by using a Secure Shell (SSH) client or by using the vSphere Client and log in as the root user.
    2. Open the upgrade log file. 
      less /var/log/upgrade.log
    3. Verify that the upgrade log finishes with the following log extract. 
      Complete!
Verifying...             ########################################
Preparing...             ########################################
	package filesystem-1.1-4.ph3.x86_64 is already installed
Bad exit code: 256
{
  “code”: “BadExitCode”,
  “msg”: “”,
  “args”: [
    “256"
  ]
}
    4. Restart the appliance. 
      reboot
  9. Unmount the .iso file.
    1. In the vSphere Client, shut down the virtual machine that hosts the cloud appliance.
    2. Right-click the virtual machine and select Edit Settings.
    3. In the Virtual Hardware tab, select CD/DVD Drive and deselect Connected and Connect At Power On.
    4. Power on the virtual machine that hosts the cloud appliance.

Results

After validating that the upgrade is successful, repeat this procedure for the next appliance, until you upgrade all cloud appliances, according to the upgrade order in the table.

What to do next

After you upgrade all the VMware Cloud Director Availability appliances, finish the upgrade with a post-upgrade configuration. For more information, see Post-Upgrade Configuration in the Cloud.