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camowen
Contributor
Contributor

standalone ESXi 5.x host and update manager.

It is understood that update manager, operating as a VM, cannot be used to patch a standalone host - must shut down the update manager VM and enter maintenance mode, and then update manager is no longer available.

However, update manager does a fine job of staging patches to the host machine. It seems it would be so helpful to be able to find those staged patches once the  host is in maintenance mode and apply the command line esxcli ...  (http://communities.vmware.com/people/vmroyale/blog/2011/09/15/updating-esxi-5--single-use-esxcli-how...)

In this way update manager can do its job of scanning the host, downloading the correct patches, and transferring to the host machine (staging). leaving me the last remaining task of entering maintenance mode and applying the patches

Is this approach feasible?

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ssbkang
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

I am not quite sure this will be a best practice but in my opinion, this approach could be achieved.

One thing is, during the installation of the Update Manager, you need point to a vCenter server. Probably you have a standalone ESXi 5.x box which isn't registered/managed to/by one of the vCenter servers?

Please keep me updated how it goes, this is quite interesting Smiley Happy

Regards,

Steven.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

As stated, you need to have vcenter for running update manager.Update manager is a windows application thats installed normally on any windows  machine. Also Update manager doesnot download patches on the system which it is installed. It downloads only the metadata of the patches release from the download source. VUM scans the host with the patch metadata  and check which are compliant patches based on which, once we click on remediate, it starts downloading the patches onto the temp location inside the host and installs it.

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