Host remediation runs in different ways depending on the types of baselines that you attach to an object and whether the remediated host is in a cluster or not.

Host Upgrade Remediation

When you upgrade an ESXi6.7 or ESXi7.0 host to ESXi8.0, all supported custom VIBs remain intact on the host after the upgrade, regardless of whether the VIBs are included in the installer ISO.

You can upgrade hosts by using custom ESXi images that contain third-party modules for ESXi8.0. In such a case, third-party modules that are compatible with ESXi8.0 stay available on the upgraded host.

Host upgrade in a high-latency network in which vSphere Lifecycle Manager and the hosts are at different locations might take a few hours because the upgrade file is copied from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot to the host before the upgrade. During this time, the host stays in maintenance mode.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager 8.0 supports upgrade from ESXi 6.7 and ESXi 7.0 to ESXi 8.0.

Upgrading to ESXi8.0 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 4 GB. When booting from a local disk, SAN or iSCSI LUN, up to 128 GB of disk space is used to create ESXi system partitions. You can create a VMFS datastore on a boot disk larger than 128 GB.

Note: After you upgrade your host to ESXi 8.0, you cannot roll back to the previous ESXi versions, ESXi 6.7, ESXi 7.0. So, back up your host configuration before performing an upgrade. If the upgrade fails, you can reinstall the ESXi 6.7 or ESXi 7.0 software that you upgraded from and restore your host configuration. For more information about backing up and restoring your ESXi configuration, see the VMware ESXi Upgrade documentation. To upgrade ESXi hosts, you must first import ESXi ISO images to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot. You then create baselines and baseline groups to manage the upgrades for the ESXi hosts.

Host Patch Remediation

Patching is the process of remediating ESXi hosts against patch baselines.

The remediation of ESXi 6.7 and 7.0 hosts to their respective ESXi update releases is a patching process, while the remediation of ESXi hosts from version 6.7 or 7.0 to 8.0 is an upgrade process.

vSphere Lifecycle Manager handles host patches in the following ways:

  • If a patch in a patch baseline requires the installation of another patch, vSphere Lifecycle Manager detects the prerequisite in thedepot and installs it together with the selected patch.
  • If a patch is in a conflict with other patches that are installed on the host, the conflicting patch might not be staged or installed. However, if another patch in the baseline resolves the conflicts, the conflicting patch is installed. For example, consider a baseline that contains patch A and patch C, and patch A conflicts with patch B, which is already installed on the host. If patch C obsoletes patch B, and patch C is not in a conflict with patch A, the remediation process installs patches A and C.
  • If a patch is in a conflict with the patches in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot and is not in a conflict with the host, after a compliance check, vSphere Lifecycle Manager reports this patch as a conflicting one. You can stage and apply the patch to the host.
  • When multiple versions of the same patch are selected, vSphere Lifecycle Manager installs the latest version and skips installing the earlier versions.

During patch remediation, vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatically installs the prerequisites of the patches.

With vSphere Lifecycle Manager8.0, you can remediate hosts of version ESXi6.7 and ESXi7.0 against patches from offline bundles, which you import to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot manually.

You can stage patches before remediation to reduce host downtime.

Host Extension Remediation

During extension remediation, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not automatically install the prerequisites of the extension. Missing extension prerequisites cause some remediation operations to fail. If the missing prerequisite is a patch, you can add it to a patch baseline. If the missing prerequisite is an extension, you can add it to the same or another extension baseline. You can then remediate the host against the baseline or baselines that contain the prerequisite and the original extension baseline.