To renew the trial status of an existing ESXi 5.1 install:
- Perform a fresh install of ESXi 5.1 in a virtual machine (choose your poison for hypervisor – I use VirtualBox)
- Copy the /etc/vmware/license.cfg and /etc/vmware/vmware.lic files or contents of the files from the fresh install you just performed to the existing ESXi 5.1 host
- /sbin/services.sh restart vpxa
- Viola!
To renew the trial status of an existing vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA):
- Backup DB:
service vmware-vpxd stop
mkdir /tmp/bakup
chown db2inst1: /tmp/bakup
su – db2inst1
db2 force applications all
db2 backup db vcdb to /tmp/bakup - Copy the file locally (winscp from /tmp/bakup)
- Remove the VCSA VM and rename the folder to something like VCSA.old
- Re-import the appliance from scratch via OVF, sys and data disks
- Reduce the vRAM from 8GB to 4GB and start the new VCSA VM
- Configure the IP address and time settings
- Connect to https://<IP address of VCSA>:5480
- Accept the EULA and login (user: root, pass: vmware)
- Configure DB
- Restore DB
service vmware-vpxd stop
mkdir /tmp/bakup
chown db2inst1:/tmp/bakup
Copy file to new VCSA (winscp to /tmp/bakup)
chown db2inst1:/tmp/bakup/VCDB*
su – db2inst1
db2 restore db vcdb from /tmp/bakup replace existing
exit
service vmware-vpxd start - Connect to new VCSA via vSphere client
- Reconnect to each ESXi server by right clicking on each in the VCSA inventory
Disclaimer: I haven’t read the full trial licensing agreement for vSphere 5.1 and don’t condone the use of this information to break that or any licensing agreement… ever… for any reason… nuff said…