How to patch ESXi 5
Step 0 – Enabling SSH access to the VMware ESXi 5 host Yes, there is step 0 actually. How to do it? Simple: - Through vSphere client click on the VMware ESXi 5 server > Confiure > Security Profile (services) - SSh > Options >
Step 1 – Stage the ESXi 5 patches to a Datastore accessible by the VMware ESXi 5 host Via the vSphere Datastore browser upload the patch which you have downloaded from VMware Patch Website. This website lists all VMware ESXi Patches. During the copy operation which can take some time, you have plenty of time to gracefully shut down all your VMs which runs at the moment on your host.
I have created a sub-folder for that purpose.
Step 2 – Connect via SSH by using putty for example
Putty is the most known SSH client.
Run this command and wait, because the decompression and installation take some time……
esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/<YOUR VOLUME>/<NAME OF PATCH FILE>.zip
In my case, I executed this command:
The process will probably take some time. You should see this screen confirming the installation and requiring the reboot of the host. You can click to enlarge.
Step 3 – Reboot your VMware ESXi 5 host Now when you reboot, the system will probably complain that the maintenance mode hasn’t been enabled…. And you should see the version number change on your VMware ESXi 5 host.
