ESXi 4 updating/upgrading

[TomBodet]

OK, I'm lost.

I have two 4.0 (171294)  and one 4.1 (260247) servers that due to the Win7 vClient issue, we can't manage them easily.  These are the free edition.

I'm trying to figure out / understand how to perform update/upgrades to these to get them all on the same version and for the life of me I keep going around and round in circles on the vmware site.

I have a vMA on each box so I was looking at vihostupdate.  But I don't understand the syntax and/or can't locate the update file.  Meaning, it looks like you should do a wget and pull down a zip file that is the update info to work against and I can't find what zip is the right one to use.  Is there also a URL that could be used to just have the tool look at the latest online?

I don't want to go to 5 yet, I just need to even out these servers and get to (I think) 4.1 U1.

I have to be missing something painfully obvious because it just shouldn't be this confusing.  Can someone point me in the right direction?

ty

[Cyberfed27]

Do you have vCenter?

vCenter with the update manager plugin makes upgrading them just a few mouse clicks.

I would recommend that.

[TomBodet]

This is free/unsupported ESXi.  I've only seen licensed vCenter.  Since I don't get to spend anything on hw/sw, no, I don't have vCenter. 

[DSTAVERT]

You will need to download the vCLI tools or the vMA appliance. Browse to your ESXi host using your web browser for the download links. You can use the following link for update instructions. http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022140

[TomBodet]

It's a conspiracy I tell you.

The vihostupdate video audio cuts out literally right at the time he starts describing where to get the zip then comes back after that part is done.

From what I see, they're pointing to the fact the update zips are part of the next version's entire download?  So, pull down the new version ISO and extract the zip from it?

[a_p_]

Although the KB David mentioned is for upgrading from 4.0 to 4.1, the steps to update/patch a host using vihostupdate are identical. You can download the zip files from http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal

Btw. which issue do you have with the client? For ESXi 4.0 you can also use the Host Update Utility which can be installed as part of the vSphere Client 4.0.

André

[TomBodet]

The client issue is you can't run the 4.1 client and use it to connect to a 4.0 server running from Win7.

I honestly wasn't paying attention to the stuff that came with the vClient.  Yes there is a host update util, but it says it's 4.0.  That shouldn't have an impact on it's capability to patch the 4.1 box right?

I'm also assuming "patch host" means take 4.0 and get it to 4.0 U2 while upgrade host takes it to whatever I select, say 4.1?

I'd still like to get the vMA working as having two ways of doing things is always a better bet.

[a_p_]

The issue with the vSphere Client was solved with 4.0 Update 1. If you want, download the "update-from-esxi4.0-4.0_update03" pzip/package from the download site and use e.g. 7zip to extract the newest 4.0 vSphere Client from the included "vmware-esx-viclient-4.0.0-3.22.398348.i386.vib". This will allow you to easily patch the 4.0 hosts using the Host Update Utility and also manage the 4.0 hosts without issues.

If you want to patch the hosts using vihostupdate.pl from the vMA, download the appropriate packages and upload them to the vMA using e.g. WinSCP.

Btw. the Host Update Utility only supports patching ESXi 4.0, not 4.1 (although some users reported that this worked)

André

[TomBodet]

Ok so I'm not willing to risk damaging my 4.0 boxes by using 4.0 to get them to 4.1.

So I'm back to using vihostupdate.

What I still don't understand is this line:

André Pett wrote:

If you want to patch the hosts using vihostupdate.pl from the vMA, download the appropriate packages and upload them to the vMA using e.g. WinSCP.

My initial confusion for starting this thread is literally this statement.  I don't understand how to tell what it is I need to download.  The download page is for patches, not upgrades.

The way I see it, I have two things going on here.

1) I need to upgrade 4.0 to 4.1 U1.  I still don't have any clue how to do that other than supposedly using the vihostupdate command and feeding it a zip of some sort.  I need to know where to get that zip, is it out of the 4.1 U1 install CD?  At that point, since the guests need to be shutdown anyway as is a reboot, does the install CD do upgrades?  Could I just boot from that and perform one or is the only upgrade path via vihostupdate?

2) I need to patch 4.1 to 4.1 U1.  Are the patches on the download site inclusive?  In other words, I see this is the zip for U1 : https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/OFFLINE/release-259-20110127-527075/update-from-esx4.1-4....

Does that zip include the previous patches ( ESX410-201011001 and ESX410-201010001) or do I need to literally download them bottom to top and apply one at a time?