Easiest way to patch ESXi (8.0) without vCenter

[KennethDevriese]

Community,

A customer asked what is the best way to patch ESXi without having to download the latest ISO from the VMWare CC and mount through iLO (HPE) etc...

Is there an easy way (without vCenter) to just install critical patches on ESXi without needing to even reboot the ESXi host? Or is the best way still to download the ISO and update it with a reboot?

Thanks in advance,
Kenneth

[irigoyen]

You have the possibility to update an ESXi Host with vCenter ( Baseline or Image) or directly through the CLI on the ESXi.

With both solutions, you need to set the host in maintenance mode and reboot it.

 

Update / Upgrade / Patch Offline

1. Download the offline bundle zip file from VMware site.
2. Upload the bundle zip file to a datastore accessible by the host.
3. Place the host you want to upgrade into Maintenance Mode.
4. SSH into the desired ESXi Host
5. Execute esxcli command

esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/<datastore path>/VMware-ESXi-<version>-depot.zip

6. Execute esxcli command

esxcli software profile update -p <ESX profile name> -d /vmfs/volumes/<datastore path>/VMware-ESXi-<version>-depot.zip

[KennethDevriese]

The goal would be to not need the production to go down, since you need to be in maintenance i guess the answer is no? Easiest way is to download the ISO and go through the GUI, as it would be for a customer of ours that doesnt have a lot of IT experience so it needs to be user friendly

[Douglas Bowen]

Yes no patching without taking out of production the host for maintenance mode and reboot Easiest for one off is as above with the CLI and patch bundle, however you can fairly easily do this also via Terraform if you want to be ready for future IaaC environment and one click future patching