How to update esxi 5

[gymiv]

I have just installed 2 esxi 5 standalone servers in my test enviroment. I cannot find a way to check for updates or run updates. Is there some way to do this with my esxi servers?

[Troy_Clavell]

maybe the below blog will come in handy

http://communities.vmware.com/people/vmroyale/blog/2011/09/15/updating-esxi-5--single-use-esxcli-how...

[gymiv]

I downloaded this from the essentials plus site and installed esxi 5. How do i know whether or not i have "Make sure you have the vMA 5.0 or the vCLI installed and configured or that you have ESXi Shell access on the ESXi 5 host".

2. Where do i download the patches from?

I am conused on how to accomplish the rest of this doc also. I am new to vmware and am trying to learn this from the ground up. I appologize for my ignorance.

is there not an update utility for esxi 5? Please help.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

you can download the patches for ESXi5 from https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/OFFLINE/release-325-20111212-924952/ESXi500-201112001.zip

As for the vMA, the documentation should get you all the information on how to connect to an  ESXi Host.If you only have two standalone hosts, it may be easier to use the vCLI

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/

...or you can install the vCLI on your local client

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

Once you have either the vMA 5.0 or the vCLI installed and configured you should be able to follow the blog and get your Hosts up to date.

There is no Host update utility for ESXi5

[bparlier]

For the vMA, you can go to the following link:

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vima/

For the patch downloads, you can go to the following link:

http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal

[gymiv]

are you supposed to join the esxi servers to the domain before installing vcenter?

[Troy_Clavell]

no, you don't need to join the ESXi Hosts to the domain.  If you are installing vCenter, then also install VMware Update Manager (On the vCenter Media), and use VUM to patch your hosts.

[gymiv]

will do but here is another question, when installing vcenter i get to the part of the install where it asks whether or not to install this under the system account, i left the default as system, under fQDN it comes up with the name of the server and when i hit next it says it cannot resolve the host name. Can you advise on this.

[bparlier]

vUM is the easiest way to do all of your patching. For more on that you can see:

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vum_pubs.html