ESXi 3.5u5 new installs currently impossible to update

[joshuadf]

Hey, attempting to repurpose some 32-bit hardware here and it appears that new ESXi 3.5 installs are currently impossible to update. The latest ISO available contains the recently expired signing cert but does not contain the new one:

VMware ESX Server 3i Update 5 Installable Refresh 12/03/09

[AndreTheGiant]

Have you tried to get an old version?

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_vsphere_hypervisor_esxi/3_5

[joshuadf]

That looks like the same one I have, which throws that cert expiry issue.

[joshuadf]

For more detail, the patch that the ESXi 3.5u5 installable download does not have is:

ESXe350-201012401-I-BG (build 317866), a "CRITICAL" patch released December 7, 2010

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1030002

• "To continue applying patches on ESXi 3.5 hosts, the secure key needs to be updated before June 1, 2011. "

vihostupdate simply says "Operation failed : fault.PatchIntegrityError.summary" but you can get more from the logs.

[joshuadf]

Does anyone at VMWare even read the ESXi 3.5 forum anymore? It's been nearly a month and no reply. Looks like ESXi 3.5 is effectively a dead product if new installs cannot be patched with security updates  after June 1, 2011. So much for reusing my 32-bit hardware.

https://www.vmware.com/go/getesxi/

[DSTAVERT]

Have you tried to change the date on your system. Disable NTP and manually set the date to Jan 1 2011. Restart ESXi and then try your update.

[joshuadf]

Faking the date worked, thanks. We're embarrassed we didn't think of that ourselves. I did it a little differently, rebooted first and then stopped NTP and changed the date to anything less than June 1 and then patched, then rebooted to apply. That way when it came back up the date was correct again with NTP running. Now hopefully everyone else with DL380 G3s and PowerEdge 2850s will find this and be able to patch ESXi 3.5.

[Dekozi]

Thank you. Rolling back the date to January 2011 worked on my DL380 G4.