You can remediate hosts against attached groups of upgrade, patch, and extension baselines. Baseline groups might contain multiple patch and extension baselines, or an upgrade baseline combined with multiple patch and extension baselines.

You can perform an orchestrated upgrade by using a host baseline group. The upgrade baseline in the baseline group runs first, followed by patch and extension baselines.

Note: Alternatively, you can upgrade hosts by using a single upgrade baseline. See Remediate Hosts Against an Upgrade Baseline in the vSphere Web Client.

Prerequisites

Ensure that at least one baseline group is attached to the host.

Review any scan messages in the Upgrade Details window for potential problems with hardware, third-party software, and configuration issues that might prevent a successful upgrade to ESXi 6.7.

Procedure

  1. Use the vSphere Web Client to log in to a vCenter Server Appliance, or to a vCenter Server system with which Update Manager is registered.
  2. Select Home > Hosts and Clusters.
  3. From the inventory object navigator, select a data center, a cluster, or a host, and click the Update Manager tab.
  4. Click Remediate.
    If you selected a container object, all hosts under the selected object are remediated.
    The Remediate wizard opens.
  5. On the Select baseline page of the Remediate wizard, select the baseline group and baselines to apply.
  6. Select the target hosts that you want to remediate and click Next.
    If you have chosen to remediate a single host and not a container object, the host is selected by default.
  7. On the End User License Agreement page, accept the terms, and click Next.
  8. (Optional) On the Patches and Extensions page, deselect specific patches or extensions to exclude them from the remediation process, and click Next.
  9. (Optional) On the Advanced options page, select the option to schedule the remediation to run later, and specify a unique name and an optional description for the task.
    The time you set for the scheduled task is the time of the vCenter Server instance to which Update Manager is connected.
  10. (Optional) On the Advanced options page, select the option to ignore warnings about unsupported devices on the host, or no longer supported VMFS datastore to continue with the remediation.
  11. Click Next.
  12. (Optional) Enable Quick Boot to skip hardware reboot of the host after remediation, or deselect the check box if you want your host to undergo hardware reboot.
    Quick Boot is a configuration setting that might be enabled by default from the Update Manager host and cluster settings.
    Note: Quick Boot is supported on a limited number of hardware configurations. For more information, see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52477.
  13. On the Host Remediation Options page, from the Power state drop-down menu, you can select the change in the power state of the virtual machines that are running on the hosts to be remediated.
    Option Description
    Power Off virtual machines Power off all virtual machines before remediation.
    Suspend virtual machines Suspend all running virtual machines before remediation.
    Do Not Change VM Power State Leave virtual machines in their current power state.

    A host cannot enter maintenance mode until virtual machines on the host are powered off, suspended, or migrated with vMotion to other hosts in a DRS cluster.

    Some updates require that a host enters maintenance mode before remediation. Virtual machines cannot run when a host is in maintenance mode.

    To reduce the host remediation downtime at the expense of virtual machine availability, you can choose to shut down or suspend virtual machines before remediation. In a DRS cluster, if you do not power off the virtual machines, the remediation takes longer but the virtual machines are available during the entire remediation process, because they are migrated with vMotion to other hosts.

  14. (Optional) Select Retry entering maintenance mode in case of failure, specify the number of retries, and specify the time to wait between retries.
    Update Manager waits for the retry delay period and retries putting the host into maintenance mode as many times as you indicate in Number of retries field.
  15. (Optional) Select Disable any removable media devices connected to the virtual machine on the host.
    Update Manager does not remediate hosts on which virtual machines have connected CD, DVD, or floppy drives. In cluster environments, connected media devices might prevent vMotion if the destination host does not have an identical device or mounted ISO image, which in turn prevents the source host from entering maintenance mode.

    After remediation, Update Manager reconnects the removable media devices if they are still available.

  16. (Optional) Select the check box under PXE Booted Hosts to enable Update Manager to patch powered on PXE booted ESXi hosts.
    This option appears only when you remediate hosts against patch or extension baselines.
  17. (Optional) Save the host remediation options you selected as default.
    Saves your current selections and makes them available as pre-selected for your next host remediation operation.
  18. Click Next.
  19. If you remediate hosts in a cluster, edit the cluster remediation options, and click Next.
    The Cluster remediation options page is available only when you remediate clusters.
    Option Details
    Disable Distributed Power Management (DPM) if it is enabled for any of the selected clusters.

    Update Manager does not remediate clusters with active DPM.

    DPM monitors the resource use of the running virtual machines in the cluster. If sufficient excess capacity exists, DPM recommends moving virtual machines to other hosts in the cluster and placing the original host into standby mode to conserve power. Putting hosts into standby mode might interrupt remediation.

    Disable High Availability admission control if it is enabled for any of the selected clusters.

    Update Manager does not remediate clusters with active HA admission control.

    Admission control is a policy used by VMware HA to ensure failover capacity within a cluster. If HA admission control is enabled during remediation, the virtual machines within a cluster might not migrate with vMotion.

    Disable Fault Tolerance (FT) if it is enabled. This affects all fault tolerant virtual machines in the selected clusters.

    If FT is turned on for any of the virtual machines on a host, Update Manager does not remediate that host.

    For FT to be enabled, the hosts on which the Primary and Secondary virtual machines run must be of the same version and must have the same patches installed. If you apply different patches to these hosts, FT cannot be re-enabled.

    Enable parallel remediation for the hosts in the selected clusters.

    Remediate hosts in clusters in a parallel manner. If the setting is not selected, Update Manager remediates the hosts in a cluster sequentially.

    You can select one of the following options for parallel remediation:
    • You can let Update Manager continuously evaluate the maximum number of hosts it can remediate concurrently without disrupting DRS settings.
    • You can specify a limit of the number of concurrently remediated hosts in each cluster you remediate.
    Note: Update Manager remediates concurrently only the hosts on which virtual machines are powered off or suspended. You can choose to power off or suspend virtual machines from the VM Power State menu in the Maintenance Mode Options pane on the Host Remediation Options page.

    By design only one host from a vSAN cluster can be in a maintenance mode at any time. Update Manager remediates hosts that are part of a vSAN cluster sequentially even if you select the option to remediate them in parallel.

    Migrate powered off and suspended virtual machines to other hosts in the cluster, if a host must enter maintenance mode. Update Manager migrates the suspended and powered off virtual machines from hosts that must enter maintenance mode to other hosts in the cluster. You can choose to power off or suspend virtual machines before remediation in the Maintenance Mode Settings pane.
  20. (Optional) Save the cluster remediation options you selected as default.
    Saves your current selections and makes them available as pre-selected for your next cluster remediation operation.
  21. (Optional) On the Ready to complete page, click Pre-check Remediation to generate a cluster remediation options report, and click OK.
    A Cluster Remediation Options Report dialog box opens. You can export this report, or copy the entries for your own record.
  22. Review the Ready to Complete page, and click Finish.

Example

Note: In the Recent Tasks pane, the remediation task is displayed and will remain at about 22 percent for most of the process. The process is still running and will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.