VMware Communities: Message List - How to use UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) for ESX patches only?

Re: How to use UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) for ESX patches only?

hollandwl — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:27:46 GMT

UMDS needs a major overhaul to:

1. Let the customer choose which versions to download patches for. I don't have, never have had, and never will have ESX 3.0, so why should I download those patches? There should be a config file setting to set the versions you want something akin to: Vesions=35,40

2. Rather than downloading everything or specifying a date range to re-download:

Download a listing of available patches for the versions I have specified
Compare that listing to what is in my local repository
Download only the differences

3. Provide a way to cleanup a repository to remove patches that are no longer needed.

It cannot be good for VMware to have everyone repeatedly downloading multiple gigabytes of patches from them all the time.

Re: How to use UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) for ESX patches only?

harkamal — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 03:57:51 GMT

is there a way to download patches for esx 3.5 only and not for older versions ?

Re: How to use UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) for ESX patches only?

dmadden — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:22:11 GMT

One of the users on the forums made this document which answers your question:

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-2505

So basically if you do

vmware-udms -S -h true

vmware-udms -S -w false

vmware-udms -S -l false

vmware-udms --download

that should work.

How to use UMDS (Update Manager Download Service) for ESX patches only?

GambleDW — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:14:41 GMT

I'm in the situation where I need to use UMDS to download the updates, and then export them for another Update Manager instance behind a closed firewall.

Problem: I can't find the first thing regarding documentation on this feature, except for the meager output of vmware-umds.exe --help (see below)...

=================

Basic Commands:
-H --help Help on running (this description)
-D --download Download Updates based on the current configuration
-E --export Export Updates
-R --re-download Re-download the Updates
-S --set-config Setup Initial Configuration
-i --info-level arg The level of information shown on the console:
verbose, info.

Optional arguments for Export and Re-download:
--dest arg The destination directory for export operation
(Overrides setting from initial configuration)
-s --start-time arg For export and re-download, restrict selection to
include updates downloaded after this time. Format is
ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[Z]. Use 'Z' at the end
to indicate UTC
-t --end-time arg For export and re-download, restrict selection to
include updates downloaded before this time. Format
is ISO-8601 YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss[Z]. Use 'Z' at the
end to indicate UTC

Arguments for setting up initial configuration:
--store arg The directory to store all the downloaded updates
--proxy arg Proxy Server settings in host:port format.To disable
proxy, use --proxy ""
-h --enable-host arg Enable ESX Host update downloads
-w --enable-win arg Enable Windows VM update downloads
-l --enable-lin arg Enable Linux VM update downloads
-e --exp-dir arg The default directory for exporting updates
--dsn arg The System DSN for the database connection
-u --username arg Username to be used with the DSN
-p --password arg Password to be used with the DSN

=================

I only want UMDS to download ESX host patches. When I do the "vmware-umds -D", it proceeds to download EVERYTHING, including the un-needed Microsoft and Linux patches. I don't want to waste space for a truck load of MS patches that I'll never use (this environment uses other methods for MS patching). The output above indicates that I should put a "-h" (Enable ESX Host updates download) with an argument, but I can't figure out what that argument is! I've tried "esx", "ESX", and various sundry other things, and all I get is an error that says "the --enable-host argument is invalid". And yes, I've tried it with no argument, and still no luck. Funny part is, you'd think the "-h" would be sufficient to tell it that I just want ESX Host updates, since there are other switches for windows (-w) and linux (-l).

Any help out there?