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Tag Archives: Update Manager

Understanding ESXi Patches – Manually Patching ESXi hosts

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Kyle Gleed, Sr. Technical Product Manager, VMware

I’ve recently been blogging about ESXi patches with the hopes of making it easier for you to identify and track  available updates and to keep your ESXi hosts up-to-date.  In my first post I talked about how to find patches.  In my second post I went over the steps to manually upload the patches into Update Manager.  The next topic I want to cover is how to install the patches using the vCLI.  Fortunately, this is easily done because there are already a couple of good blog posts that show how to do this.  So rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m just going to point to the existing articles.

Back in September 2010, shortly after we released our first ESXi 5.0 update I wrote this article giving an overview on how to use the new ESXCLI command released with vSphere 5.0 to install ESXi updates update.

More recently William Lam recently posted this excellent article that not only shows how to use the new ESXCLI command with ESXi 5.0, but also provides a good overview of the other available vCLI and PowerCLI commands that can be used to patch versions of ESX/ESXi prior to 5.0: 

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Understanding ESXi Patches – Manually Adding Patches to Update Manager

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Kyle Gleed, Sr. Technical Product Manager, VMware

In my previous post I went over the steps to manually download ESXi host patches.  In this post I will go over the steps to manually add the downloaded patches into Update Manger.  Normally, Update Manager is configured to automatically download patches as they become available, but if your security policy doesn’t allow Update Manager to access the Internet you will need to manually download and add the patches.  Let’s go over the steps to do this.

I’m going to assume that you have Update Manager installed and registered and that you’ve downloaded the ESXi patches as I discussed in my previous blog.  For information on how to install and configure update manager refer to the Update Manager guide.  

Begin by logging onto the vSphere client.  From the vSphere client home screen click on the “Update Manager” icon.  From the Update Manager Administration window select the “Patch Repository” tab.  Upload the ESXi patches by selecting the “Import Patches” link in the top right corner. 

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Understanding ESXi Patches – Finding Patches

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Kyle Gleed, Sr. Technical Product Manager, VMware

I recently met with a customer who was confused about patching ESXi hosts.  Not only did she have questions about where to find patches, she was confused about what to do with them once she finally had them.  I know she’s not alone so I figured a refresher on ESXi patching would be helpful.

Of course the easiest way to manage ESXi host patches is with Update Manager, and for most of us this simply entails letting Update Manager automatically downloads patches as they become available and then scheduling a time to remediate the hosts.  However, there are situations where Update Manager may not be allowed access to the Internet in order to automatically download patches.  In addition, there are some who, for whatever reason, either cannot or choose not to use Update Manager.  For these folks patching is still very easy, although a little bit more involved. 

Probably the easiest way to get a list of available patches is from VMware’s online patch portal at http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal.  From the patch portal you simply select the architecture (ESX or ESXi), specify your version, and then click the search button.  The screen shot below shows my query to get all the ESXi 5.0 patches.

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The search will return a list showing all the available ESXi 5.0 patches.  For each patch you will see the name, size, and download information on the left and a list of all the updates included in the patch on the right.  Note that for each fix there is also a link to a related KB article where you can get more information about a specific fix or update.

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To download the patch simply select it by clicking in the checkbox next to the patch name and click the “Download Now” button.  You can download a single patch or multiple patches.   Each patch will be saved as a separate .zip file.  Once you’ve downloaded the patches you have a few options on how to install them.  Again, probably the easiest way to install patches is using Update Manager, but you can also use the ESXCLI command or PowerCLI.  In addition you can also use the Image Builder CLI to add the patch to your installation ISO so that it will automatically be included when you install new ESXi hosts.  Stay tuned as over the next few days I'll be posting the steps for each these options… 

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