Cisco Nexus team released the update to the Nexus 1000v product taking it to release 4.2(1) SV1(4). They did a great job of documenting the entire upgrade process both in docs and in a series of screencasts. Check it out it’s really worth your time.
However one obvious thing that they have missed so far is how to upgrade if your VSM is in standalone mode. Part of the problem is the Upgrade application (GUI) does not support standalone mode and the upgrade document does not address the manual upgrade (CLI) method for standalone VSM.
Here is a quick guide on how to upgrade your standalone VSM from 4.0(4) SV1(3, 3a, or 3b) to 4.2(1) SV1(4).
Before you start make sure you have run the pre-upgrade check script against your 1000v configuration to make sure you don’t run into the 7 configurations that are incompatible with Nexus 4.0.x to 4.2.x code.
Now the actual steps:
Step 0 Do a show mod and make sure you have already upgraded all the VEM modules. Remember this has changed from earlier releases. You HAVE to upgrade the VEM first and VSM second to upgrade to release 4.2(1) SV1(4).
show mod
Mod  Ports  Module-Type                       Model               Status
---  -----  --------------------------------  ------------------  ------------
1    0      Virtual Supervisor Module         Nexus1000V          active *
3    248    Virtual Ethernet Module           NA                  ok
4    248    Virtual Ethernet Module           NA                  ok
5    248    Virtual Ethernet Module           NA                  ok
6    248    Virtual Ethernet Module           NA                  ok
Mod  Sw                Hw
---  ----------------  ------------------------------------------------
1    4.0(4)SV1(3b)      0.0
3    4.2(1)SV1(4)      VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Releasebuild-320137 (2.0)
4    4.2(1)SV1(4)      VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Releasebuild-320137 (2.0)
5    4.2(1)SV1(4)      VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Releasebuild-320137 (2.0)
6    4.2(1)SV1(4)      VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Releasebuild-320137 (2.0)
Mod  MAC-Address(es)                         Serial-Num
---  --------------------------------------  ----------
1    00-19-07-6c-5a-a8 to 00-19-07-6c-62-a8  NA
3    02-00-0c-00-03-00 to 02-00-0c-00-03-80  NA
4    02-00-0c-00-04-00 to 02-00-0c-00-04-80  NA
5    02-00-0c-00-05-00 to 02-00-0c-00-05-80  NA
6    02-00-0c-00-06-00 to 02-00-0c-00-06-80  NA
Mod  Server-IP        Server-UUID                           Server-Name
---  ---------------  ------------------------------------  --------------------
1    172.16.165.55    NA                                    NA
3    172.16.165.91    dcedbaac-1dc0-11df-0000-00000000000e  172.16.165.91
4    172.16.165.92    dcedbaac-1dc0-11df-0000-00000000000d  172.16.165.92
5    172.16.165.93    dcedbaac-1dc0-11df-0000-00000000000c  172.16.165.93
6    172.16.165.94    dcedbaac-1dc0-11df-0000-00000000000b  172.16.165.94
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