Updating Esxi host in remote location with virtual vcentre

[Fergieman201110]

Guys

I have 1 esxi host and virtual vcentre that I need to apply updates to which is in different location to where I phsycial am (300 hundred miles away). The update manager is the way I normally do updates but it wants to power off all machines/move vms before starting the patch remediation

I don't have a 2nd host in this location so I can't move off the vm's to another host. Am I snookered?

[jonathanp]

If downtime is acceptable for you, you could do :

1- Validate the you can get to the Remote Management adapter  ( IMM, iLO, etc...) to ensure that if your host is not rebooting you can get access to a console.

2- Shutdown all the VMs.
3- log on ESXi using ssh ( enable it if needed first )

4- Transfer patch if needed to a DS location that the host has access

5- Update you host using command line

    VMware KB: Installing patches on an ESXi 5.x host from the command line
6- Reboot host...

7- enable SSH if needed again ( that can be done using powerCLI or other tools )
8- power on you vCenter using vim-cmd..

i.e  vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms ( to get the VM id of your vCenter )

     vim-cmd/vmsvc/power.on <VMID>

Regards..

Jon

Message was edited by: Jonathan P.

[bhards4]

Hi,

If you have single host in your vCenter environment, then its not possible to patch your host without downtime because if you are try so UM, it will ask ESXi to put it in maintenance mode and that's not possible into your case as you have only one Host.

Even if you are doing from command line(cli) then also Esxi need a reboot to apply those patch.

Regards,

Bhards4