Upgrading to ESXi 6.5 from the command line

When rebuilding ESXi hosts, people tend to just go for the easiest option which is to wipe the disk array and completely reinstall the operating system. However, doing an in place upgrade from the command line is really simple. Here’s how it’s done:

vSphere ESXi 6.5

ESXi 6.5 is the latest update by VMware to its bare metal hypervisor. I know from experience that despite there being many updates in the versions, the installation has remained largely the same, so I was keen to see if 6.5 kept up the tradition. 

vSphere ESXI 6.0 Installation and Configuration

ESXi has come a long way over the last few years in terms of features and functionality, but one of the other things VMware has done has been to dramatically simplify the hypervisor installer. ESXi v6 is by far the easiest version i’ve ever installed. Here are the steps: