Upgrade the Primary NSX Manager in Cross-vCenter NSX

The first step in the NSX Data Center for vSphere infrastructure upgrade process is the primary NSX Manager appliance upgrade.

Caution: Running with NSX Manager appliances of different versions in a cross-vCenter NSX environment is not supported. Once you upgrade the primary NSX Manager appliance, you must upgrade the secondary NSX Manager appliances.

During the NSX Manager upgrade in a cross-vCenter NSX environment, do not make any changes to universal objects until the primary and all secondary NSX Managers are upgraded. This includes create, update, or delete of universal objects, and operations involving universal objects (for example, apply a universal security tag to a VM).

During the upgrade, you can choose to join the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) for NSX Data Center for vSphere. See Customer Experience Improvement Program in the NSX Administration Guide for more information about the program, including how to join or leave the program.

If you are upgrading from NSX 6.3.0 or later, uploading the upgrade bundle and starting the upgrade can happen independently. To start an upgrade from a previously uploaded upgrade bundle, navigate to Home > Upgrade and click Begin Upgrade.

When you upgrade NSX Manager to NSX 6.4.1 or later, a backup is automatically taken and saved locally as part of the upgrade process. See Managing NSX Manager Backups Created During Upgrade for information about managing these backup files.

If the automatic backup taken during the upgrade fails, the upgrade will not continue. Contact VMware customer support for assistance.
The automatic backup is intended as a failsafe in case your regular backup fails.
- Always take a regular NSX Manager backup before upgrading. See Back Up NSX Manager Data for more information. You can restore this backup without assistance from VMware customer support.
- If you need to restore the automatic backup, you must contact VMware customer support.

Prerequisites

Validate the NSX Manager file system usage, and perform a cleanup if /common directory usage is at 70 percent or more.
1. Log in to NSX Manager and run show filesystems to show the filesystem usage.
2. If the usage is 100 percent, enter privileged (enable) mode, and run the purge log manager and purge log system commands.
3. Reboot the NSX Manager appliance for the log cleanup to take effect.
Verify the NSX Manager virtual appliance reserved memory meets the system requirements before upgrading.
See System Requirements for NSX Data Center for vSphere.
If you have Data Security in your environment, uninstall it before upgrading NSX Manager. See Uninstall NSX Data Security. Data Security has been removed from NSX 6.3.x.
Back up your current configuration and download technical support logs before upgrading. See NSX Backup and Restore.
Download the upgrade bundle and check the MD5. See Download the Upgrade Bundle and Check the MD5.
Make sure that you understand the operational impact of the NSX Manager upgrade while the upgrade is in progress. See Operational Impacts of NSX Upgrades.
Determine which NSX Managers must be upgraded in the same maintenance window.
- If you have a cross-vCenter NSX environment, you must upgrade the primary and all secondary NSX Managers to the same NSX version in a single maintenance window.
- If you have multiple NSX Managers connected to vCenter Server systems that use the same SSO server, not all combinations of NSX Manager version are supported. You must plan the upgrade of your NSX Managers so that you have a supported configuration at the end of the maintenance window
  - All NSX Managers using the same version of NSX is supported.
  - NSX Managers using different version of NSX is supported if at least one NSX Manager has NSX 6.4.0 or later installed, and all other NSX Managers have NSX 6.3.3 or later installed.

Procedure

Log in to the NSX Manager virtual appliance.
From the home page, click Upgrade.
Click Upload Bundle, and then click Choose File. Browse to the VMware-NSX-Manager-upgrade-bundle-releaseNumber-NSXbuildNumber.tar.gz file. Click Continue to start the upload.

The upload status displays in the browser window.
If you want to start the upgrade later, click Close in the Upgrade dialog box.
When you are ready to start the upgrade, navigate to Home > Upgrade and click Begin Upgrade.
In the Upgrade dialog box, select whether you want to enable SSH, and whether you want to participate in VMware's Customer Experience Improvement Program ("CEIP"). Click Upgrade to start the upgrade.

The upgrade status displays in the browser window.

Note: The Upgrade dialog box displays a message indicating that the automatic backup has been taken.

Wait until the upgrade procedure finishes and the NSX Manager login page appears.
Log in to the NSX Manager virtual appliance again, and from the home page click Upgrade. Confirm that the upgrade state is Complete, and the version and build number on the top right matches the upgrade bundle you just installed.

Results

If you are logged in to the vSphere Web Client during the upgrade, you will see synchronization issue warnings on the Networking and Security > Installation and Upgrade > Management page. This is because you have NSX Manager appliances with different versions of NSX. You must upgrade the secondary NSX Manager appliances before proceeding with any other part of the upgrade.

After upgrading NSX Manager, you must log out and log back in to the vSphere Web Client and vSphere Client.

If the NSX plug-in does not display correctly in the vSphere Web Client or vSphere Client, clear your browser cache and history. If this step is not done, you might see an error similar to "An internal error has occurred - Error #1009" when making NSX configuration changes in the vSphere Web Client.

If the Networking and Security tab does not appear in the vSphere Web Client or vSphere Client, restart the related service:

Table 1. Client Service Commands
Client Service	vCenter Server Appliance	vCenter Server for Windows
Restart vSphere Web Client On vSphere 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7	> shell.set --enabled True > shell # service-control --stop vsphere-client # service-control --start vsphere-client	> cd C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin > service-control --stop vspherewebclientsvc > service-control --start vspherewebclientsvc
Restart vSphere Client On vSphere 6.5, and 6.7	> shell.set --enabled True > shell # service-control --stop vsphere-ui # service-control --start vsphere-ui	> cd C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin > service-control --stop vsphere-ui > service-control --start vsphere-ui
Restart vSphere Client On vSphere 7.0	> shell.set --enabled True > shell # service-control --stop vsphere-ui # service-control --start vsphere-ui	vSphere 7.0 does not support vCenter Server for Windows

Table 1. Client Service Commands

Client Service

vCenter Server Appliance

vCenter Server for Windows

Restart vSphere Web Client

On vSphere 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7

> shell.set --enabled True
> shell
# service-control --stop vsphere-client
# service-control --start vsphere-client

> cd C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin
> service-control --stop vspherewebclientsvc
> service-control --start vspherewebclientsvc

Restart vSphere Client

On vSphere 6.5, and 6.7

> shell.set --enabled True
> shell
# service-control --stop vsphere-ui
# service-control --start vsphere-ui

> cd C:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\bin
> service-control --stop vsphere-ui
> service-control --start vsphere-ui

Restart vSphere Client

On vSphere 7.0

> shell.set --enabled True
> shell
# service-control --stop vsphere-ui
# service-control --start vsphere-ui

vSphere 7.0 does not support vCenter Server for Windows

Use different Web Clients to manage vCenter Servers running different versions of NSX Managers to avoid unexpected errors when different versions of NSX plug-ins are running.

After the NSX Manager is upgraded, create a new NSX Manager backup file. See NSX Backup and Restore. The previous NSX Manager backup is only valid for the previous release.