6.5.1

For example, suppose that you use an ESXi host in evaluation mode for 20 days and then assign a
vSphere Standard Edition license key to the host. If you set the host back in evaluation mode, you can
explore the entire set of features for the host for the remaining evaluation period of 40 days.
For information about managing licensing for ESXi hosts, see the vCenter Server and Host Management
documentation.
Applying Licenses After Upgrading to ESXi 6.5
After you upgrade to ESXi 6.5, you must apply a vSphere 6.5 license.
When you upgrade ESXi 5.5 or ESXi 6.0 hosts to ESXi 6.5 hosts, the hosts are in a 60-day evaluation
mode period until you apply the correct vSphere 6.0 licenses. See About ESXi Evaluation and Licensed
Modes.
You can upgrade your existing vSphere 5.5 or 6.0 licenses or acquire vSphere 6.5 licenses from My
VMware. After you have vSphere 6.5 licenses, you must assign them to all upgraded ESXi 6.5 hosts by
using the license management functionality in the vSphere Web Client. See the vCenter Server and Host
Management documentation for details. If you use the scripted method to upgrade to ESXi 6.5, you can
provide the license key in the kickstart (ks) file.
Run the Secure Boot Validation Script on an Upgraded ESXi Host
After you upgrade an ESXi host from an older version of ESXi that did not support UEFI secure boot, you
may be able to enable secure boot. Whether you can enable secure boot depends on how you performed
the upgrade and whether the upgrade replaced all of the existing VIBs or left some VIBs unchanged. You
can run a validation script after you perform the upgrade to determine whether the upgraded installation
supports secure boot.
For secure boot to succeed, the signature of every installed VIB must be available on the system. Older
versions of ESXi do not save the signatures when installing VIBs.
UEFI secure boot requires that the original VIB signatures are persisted. Older versions of ESXi do not
persist the signatures, but the upgrade process updates the VIB signatures.
n
If you upgrade using ESXCLI commands, upgraded VIBs do not have persisted signatures. In that
case, you cannot perform a secure boot on that system.
n
If you upgrade using the ISO the upgrade process saves the signatures of all new VIBs. This also
applies to upgrades of vSphere Update Manager that use the ISO.
If any old VIBs remain on the system the signatures of those VIBs still are not available and secure boot
is not possible.
For example, if the system uses a 3rd-party driver, and the VMware upgrade does not include a new
version of the driver VIB, then the old VIB remains on the system after the upgrade. In rare cases
VMware may drop ongoing development of a specific VIB without providing a new VIB that replaces or
obsoletes it, so the old VIB remains on the system after upgrade.
Note
vSphere Upgrade
VMware, Inc. 305