This article will take a look at how to update VCSA to 6.0U2. I recently updated my vCenter Server Appliance and external Platform Services Controller in my lab to 6.0 U2, as I wanted to make use of the re-introduced VAMI, though there are also a number of other improvements. The VAMI or Appliance Management User Interface has been in the vCenter Server Appliance since version 5.0. It’s great for making changes to the vCenter appliance, such as resetting the root password, or enabling SSH without having to go into the CLI. It wasn’t available in the 6.0 release, but was reinstated with update one.
Before upgrading you will need to grab the bits from the VMware website. Rather than it being the ISO for the U2 version of the appliance, there is a package specifically used for upgrades. This can be found on the VMware patch portal:
Once the patch ISO has been downloaded put it somewhere that you can mount it to your VCSA. I uploaded it to a datastore, but you could attach it via the vSphere client if you preferred. In my lab I have an external platform services controller, which I needed to update before doing the VCSA. If you have a vCenter with embedded PSC then you don’t have to worry about updating the PSC separately.
Update an External Platform Services Controller
Before starting, I took a snapshot of both appliances. With the ISO mounted to the PSC virtual machine, log onto the appliance via SSH. Once on there, run the following command:
software-packages install --iso --acceptEulas
This will check for the mounted ISO, then it will begin the update:
Let the script run, it will take a little while. Once it is complete it will prompt you to reboot the appliance, which you can do by running the following:
shutdown reboot -r patching
Note that ‘patching’ is just a comment/reason about why the reboot is occurring. Once the appliance has rebooted you should see that it is now running 6.0 U2:
With the PSC updated successfully we can move on to updating the vCenter Server Appliance.
Update VCSA to 6.0 U2
The vCenter appliance can be updated in exactly the same way. Attach the ISO to the virtual machine then run the following command from the shell:
software-packages install --iso --acceptEulas
Once the process completes, reboot the appliance. It should now be 6.0 U2:
With the upgrade we can now access the VAMI, using the following URL: https://vcsa-hostname:5480. Though this console a number of things can be done including resetting the root password, configuring time settings, enabling the bash shell and updating the appliance:
And that’s it! We now have an updated VCSA and Platform Services Controller.