"Source vCenter Server has unsupported version of host profile" error while upgrading vCenter Server

Products

• VMware vCenter Server

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• Upgrading to vCenter Server 6.7 fails when there are 5.5 or earlier Host Profiles present.
• Upgrading to vCenter Server 7.0 fails when there are 6.0 or earlier Host Profiles present.
• Precheck reports:

Source vCenter Server has unsupported version of host profile

Host profiles with versions lower than 6.0.0 are not supported by vCenter Server 6.7. Upgrade the <x> host profiles listed below to version 6.0.0  or later before proceeding with the upgrade of vCenter Server. 

Upgrade the host profiles before upgrading all hosts with versions lower than 6.0.0. For more information see Knowledge Base article 52932.

OR

Source vCenter Server has unsupported version of host profile

Host profiles with versions lower than 6.5 are not supported by vCenter Server 7.0.0 Upgrade the <x> host profiles listed below to version 6.5  or later before proceeding with the upgrade of vCenter Server. 

Upgrade the host profiles before upgrading all hosts with versions lower than 6.5. For more information see Knowledge Base article 52932.
 

• In the /var/log/vmware/upgrade/vcdb_req.err log file, you will notice entries similar to:

ERROR: invalid-hostprofile-version -> 1
{HostProfile: <host Profile name>, Version: 0}
ERROR: invalid-hostprofile-version-count -> 1

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server Appliance 6.7.x
VMware vCenter Server 7.0.x

Cause

This issue occurs because vCenter Server 6.7 does not support Host Profiles prior to version 6.0 and vCenter Server 7.0 does not support Host Profiles prior to version 6.5

Note: In vSphere 7.0, vCenter Server for Windows has been removed and support is not available. For more information, see Farewell, vCenter Server for Windows.

Resolution

To make 6.0 host profiles to 7.0 Upgrade compatible:

Use Recommended Host Profiles Upgrade workflows from vSphere 6.7 Documentation


To make host profiles to 6.7 Upgrade compatible:

Upgrade the Host profile using following environment:

• ESXi host(s) version - 5.1 or 5.5
• vCenter server version - 6.0 or 6.5
• Host Profiles version - 5.1 or 5.5

Notes:

• ​You can export the 5.1/5.5 Host Profiles before the upgrade process to compare the Host Profiles. Export host customization is not available in vCenter Server 6.0, but is available in version 6.5. You can export the answer file values to a .csv file before proceeding with the Host Profiles upgrade.
• To find the Host Profiles that are not compliant with vSphere 6.7, run this PowerCLI command:
  Get-VMHostProfile | % { $_.ExtensionData.Config.ApplyProfile.ProfileVersion +"`t"+ $_.Name }
  
  Or
  
  Get-VMHostProfile | ? { $_.ExtensionData.Config.ApplyProfile.ProfileVersion -like "5*" }
• A list of unsupported Host Profiles can be found in this log file:
  /var/log/vmware/upgrade/vcdb_req.err
   

There are two approaches to upgrade host profiles depending on if the ESXi hosts are stateful or stateless.

1. For stateful ESXi environments
2. For stateless ESXi environments

For stateful ESXi environments

Assumption

1. If you have vSphere 6.0.0/6.5.0/6.7 hosts in the cluster and 6.0 profile is attached to the hosts.
2. vCenter is at 6.5.0/6.7.0

Steps

1. Upgrade all ESXi 6.0 hosts in the cluster to version 6.5/6.7.
2. Remediate the ESXi hosts in the cluster against the host profile with version 6.0.

All host profile settings are applied.

3. If you have an ESXi 6.5 host in the cluster, extract a new host profile from it. Otherwise extract a new host profile from an ESXi 6.7 host.

Note: There are some changed parameters for the host profile policy. For more information, see Answer File Field and Host Profile Extraction.

4. Attach the host profile with version 6.5 / 6.7 to the cluster.
5. Remediate the cluster against the host profile with version 6.5 / 6.7.
6. Remove all host profiles with version less than 6.5.0
7. Proceed with vCenter upgrade to version 7.0.

For stateless ESXi environments

Assumption :

1. If you have 6.0.0 hosts in the cluster and 6.0.0 profile is attached to the hosts.
2.  vCenter is at 6.5.0/6.7.0

Steps:

1. Create a rule-1 with 6.5.0/6.7.0(if VC is at 6.7.0) image profile. Active it for all the hosts in the cluster.
2. Boot one of the 6.0.0 host using rule. Host will boot from 6.5.0/6.7.0 image profile (rule)and profile(already attached to the cluster)
3. Extract a profile-2 from this upgraded host-1 which is now at version 6.5.0/6.7.0
4. Edit the rule and associate the profile with it.
5. Boot remaining 6.0.0 hosts in the inventory. This will upgrade all the hosts to 6.5.0/6.7.0.

Result: If hosts are in maintenance mode then follow the below steps.

6. Attach the profile to the cluster. Customization/Answer file data will automatically get populated.
7. Remediate the cluster with the attached profile.
8. Remove the host profiles with versions less than 6.5.0 from the VC inventory.
9. Proceed with VC upgrade to version 7.0

NOTE - If the unsupported Host profile is not being used anymore, it may be deleted from the vCenter

Additional Information

vSphere 7.0, Recommended Host Profiles Upgrade workflows