Mellanox VIB Incompatible With 6.5 Upgrade Bundle

Introduction

While upgrading from ESXi 5.5 to ESXi 6.5 Update 2 the upgrade bundle might show as incompatible in VMware Update Manager.

Investigating the error message shows that there is an incompatible VIB in use. In this case it is the Mellanox VIB for Mellanox hardware. If you don’t use Mellanox hardware this VIB can be safely removed and the following will explain the process remove it.

Process

If there is an issue with the upgrade bundle it will show as ‘Incompatible’ in VUM and the following message with appear in the box below.

Screen Shot 2019-02-01 at 14.59.18

Please note if any other VIBs appear here please investigate before removing them. They may need to be upgraded and could actually be in use. Another option would be to seek out the Vendor published Upgrade bundle which may address the VIB incompatibility
Put the ESXi host into Maintenance Mode. The host will need to be rebooted during this process so ensure no VMs are running on it
Open a putty session to the host that is selected for upgrade and showing the message
Run the following command and note the output. It will show the VIB in question that needs to be removed and confirm it is on the host.
- esxcli software vib list | grep Mellanox
Next step is to double check that the driver is not in use. Run the following command check the network hardware installed. Note that in this example it is Intel and Broadcom and not Mellanox
- esxcli network nic list
The screenshot below shows both the above commands being run

Screen Shot 2019-02-01 at 14.52.51

Now the VIB must be removed. Run the command below to do that. After it has completed successfully the ESXi host will need to be rebooted
- esxcli software vib remove -n net-mst
Here is the output from the command. Note the ‘Reboot Required’ is true.

Screen Shot 2019-02-01 at 14.52.40

Make sure the host is in Maintenance Mode and reboot
Once the host has rebooted run a rescan on the upgrade bundle and the status should change from ‘Incompatible’ to ‘Non-Compliant’. If the rescan doesn’t work try detaching and adding the baseline again

Screen Shot 2019-02-01 at 15.42.19