Table of Contents
Overview
There are some things that should be done prior to upgrading the VxRail that will help with a smooth upgrade. I will not be performing a VxRail upgrade, here, but rather list resources that I have been provided or used in the past. Some of the resources below require you to log in to the Dell Support page.
Disclaimer: I do not work for Dell; these are my notes and should not be used without Dell Support involved in a production scenario.
Review the Remote Proactive Support General Procedure
A guide to Dell customers on how to prepare for an upgrade of their VxRail cluster with the Remote Proactive Support Team.
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000200768
Check VxRail Credentials
Run this on the VxRail Manager
curl --unix-socket /var/lib/vxrail/nginx/socket/nginx.sock -X GET 'http://localhost/rest/vxm/internal/lockbox/v1/credentials?lockbox_name=SYSTEM&credential_names=management_account_vc'|jq
The following command will require the PSNT or serial number be added where the <host-SN> field is.
curl --unix-socket /var/lib/vxrail/nginx/socket/nginx.sock -X GET 'http://localhost/rest/vxm/internal/lockbox/v1/credentials?lockbox_name=SYSTEM&credential_names=management_account_esxi__<host-SN>'| jq
Perform Remote Auxiliary Power Drain
How to perform remote auxiliary power drain of node through the iDRAC
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000020620
Run Pre-Conditioning Script
In the event the VxRail has been secured via a secure process (i.e. DISA STIG), then there may be some settings that will prevent a successful upgrade. The following link hosts the script: https://github.com/aaronrombaut/PowerShellSnippets/blob/main/VxRail-PreConditioner.ps1
Run the VxVerify Tool
This article will introduce VxRail VxVerify tool and how to successfully run VxVerify in VxRail environment.
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000021527
Verify ESXi Hosts Have a Local Account and Valid
Each ESXi host requires a local account. This account is usually something like esximgmt.
Query or Update the Management Account
This article explains how to manually change saved VxRail credentials in VxRail Manager in VxRail versions 7.0.x and 8.0.x.
The following commands are run on the VxRail Manager.
Encode the password (replace the ‘XXXXXXXXXXXX’ with the password set on the ESXi host):
echo -n 'XXXXXXXXXXXX' | base64
Decode the password (replace the ‘XXXXXXXX’ with the queried encoded password):
echo -n 'XXXXXXXX' | base64 -d
Then the encoded result of the above goes in the following command:
curl -X PUT --unix-socket /var/lib/vxrail/nginx/socket/nginx.sock -H "Accept: application/json" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"lockbox_name":"SYSTEM","credentials":[{"credential_name":"management_account_esxi__{host-SN}","username":"{ESXi management account user name}","password":"{encoded password}"}]}' 'http://localhost/rest/vxm/internal/lockbox/v1/credentials';
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000157662