Manually updating 3.5

[khughes]

I've read the patch mgmt for 3.0.3 and 3.5 and it talks a lot about using the update manager, and very little about esxupdate, and when it does, its talking about having it go to a website and downloading it. I guess I'm pretty stuck in my ways but my boss doesn't want to use the update manager, and if possible manually update them like we have been for 3.0.2. Before I would download the .tar file, upload it, un-tar with teh tar -xvzf command, then run esxupdate within that folder.

Now when I'm downloading the updates its coming in a zip format and I'm thrown off a bit. Doesn't seem to like me now, tried unzipping them before uploading to the host and running esxupdate within that but no luck. Is there a place that has a quick step by step on how to manually update one update to a host at a time?

• Kyle

[petedr · Accepted solution]

Kyle,

This is what I do when manually updating my 3.5 hosts and it works fine.

For example if I am applying the 9/18 patches for 3.5 ( i do each release seperately )

First I create a folder on my esx host for the new patches, maybe call it 09-18-patches. Then I copy each of the 9/18 zip files to that folder and unzip each one. Then also copy the 'download contents.zip' file found on the top of the 3.5 download page to the same folder and unzip that one.

Then as root ( su - to root ) I change directory to that folder when the unzipped patches are and then run the esxupdate command 'esxupdate update'. It should then apply the patches without any issue.

You can also run esxupdate --test update to run a test update to make sure everything is ok before actually doing the update.

[polysulfide]

you can use unzip instead of tar to decrypt the archive.

esxupdate needs to be pointed at the depot and given a command to perform. For example

scp big_patch_bundle.zip to /tmp

md /vmfs/volumes/VMFSNAME/updates

cd /vmfs/volumes/VMFSNAME/updates

uzip /tmp/big_patch_bundle.zip

esxupdate -d /vmfs/volumes/VMFSNAME/updates/ update

You can also extract the files to a webserver and point to an http address for the depot.

If it was useful, give me credit

Jason White - VCP

[khughes]

Hey Pete

I think the main problem I was having was the fact there was a required patch that was out of order for some strange reason, so even though I thought I was doing the first patch for the month, it was requiring a later patch of the same month first. Was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't read the error fully and just called VMware up and they got me through it. I have to admit seeing the .zip file instead of .tgz through me a lil too. Thanks for the solutions.

• Kyle

[petedr]

Thanks for the explanation, good to hear you got it figured out