ESXi (free) version 7.03Un availability to upgrade (patch) to 7.03Us (latest) for free of charge?

[petzu]

Hi all,

I've ESXI 7.03Un what I had been running in my lab for some time now. (I believe this was latest available free version what was available on vmWare)

It's stand alone installation, and it's been controlled with either web interface or SSH. No vCenter or any other kind of stuff available here.

Web interface started to misbehave, and as far I ynderstand it correctly, it have something to do with "expired" SSH certificate.

I was hoping to keep this up running for some time more, before moving in to Proxmox territory.

Do I have possibility to some how upgrade (patch) or download latest installer (recently released) 7.03Us without any contracts or costs?

This patch is not (obviously) available at my Broadcom account without any kind of service contract.

I just spend an hour to read stuff regarding this issue, and all of the info I found seems to be either old, or download links had died.

Any suggestions would be really appreciated!

Thanks already in advance!

Petteri

 

[petzu]

Anybody?

Petteri

[Rajstopy]

Dear Petteri,

I’m in the exact same situation you are. Running ESXi in my home lab, but this architecture is linked to home automation developed over the years, meaning quite sensitive. Since I can’t easily stop the system, install Proxmox (I don’t even know about so far), I ordered a new server not later than yesterday to build the new Proxmox based architecture. Anyway, this will allow me to have a real hardware failover solution one the new server in production.
But sorry this is not your topic :-) Regarding your certificate issue, I guess you’re still using the WMWare self-signed certificate embedded in your EXSi? My architecture is setup with a private PKI, meaning I generate all my SSL certificates with step-ca, which deployment is done with Ansible. You can easily generate your own self signed certificates using openssl, you have plenty of tutos over the web, that’s quite easy. Basically you need a private key and a server certificate.

Once you have your certificates done, let’s say esxi.crt and esxi.key for the private key, rename those certificates into rui.crt and rui.key, then log on your ESXi and cd into  /etc/vmware/ssl . You will find the current outdated certificates there: rui.crt and rui.key. Rename them to something like .old, then copy both certificates you’ve just created (you can use scp command or copy paste the content, certificates are text files). 
Restart the web UI with the following command : /etc/init.d/hostd restart

Try to connect to web interface, you should be prompted about a non trusted certificate, just accept this exception.

Let me know if that works.

[petzu]

Hi Rajstopy,

and thanks for your response. I’m looking your suggestion regarding SSL certificate bit later, but have some other questions in my mind what might make me jump in to Proxmox territory now as well.

1. Is it bad idea to run ESXi 7.03Un on year 2025 without available security etc. patches?

2. Does free license for ESXi 7.0U3n work on ESXi 7.0U3s after the patch? 

3. According to “internet” you could download manufacture specific (ie. Dell HP) ESXi 7.03Us patch from reliable sources, but is this nonsense procedure? (to patch non manufacture specific ESXi version with manufacture specific patch)

4. I just tried (MAR 26 2025) to follow those instructions, but was not able to download those manufacture specific files from Broadcom anymore??? Could someone chime in regarding this?

5. What about 60 days trial versions of ESXi, are those still available somewhere? 

I guess what I’m looking here (and probably others reading this as well) if this is the time to say good bye for free ESXi stuff, or is there any other suggestions to easily patch latest available free version of ESXi 7 (what was version 7.03Un as far as I know) to the latest available future ESXi 7.03Uxx version?

Thanks already!

Petteri

[Rajstopy]

You’re very welcome Petteri.

I’m probably not the best person to answer those questions. Honestly, with the dirty trick pulled by Broadcom, I’m not even going to bother exploring a single solution based on this system. It’s just no way. I decided to go for Proxmox the day I learned Broadcom decided to stop the free ESXi version. 
Answering your question 1 just depends on how your system is exposed… But definitely not a very good idea. But to be honest (again), I’m a little bit frightened with the idea of deploying an update that would block my production. As a consequence my system is not in the latest version either. 
I told with a friend of mine recently, who migrated to Proxmox (not in a lab, but in a « real » environment). He’s quite satisfied so far, and comparing to ESXi, you even can reach a level higher: backup, HA and more, that would be expensive or at least limited with ESXi… So from my point of view, the decision is good bye ESXi.

Cheers

[petzu]

Anybody else?

Petteri

[aurora-chase]

Broadcom really pulled a bold move this time… When we were migrating to Proxmox, we tried a bunch of different migration tools. Eventually, we found Vinchin Backup & Recovery to be pretty solid—perfect for anyone needing to get out in a hurry. They offer a trial version on their website, and you can get the hang of the whole process in just half an hour in a test environment.