Feedback on unavailable patches

[andoven]

When I go to update manager for my ESXi vSphere 4 build 208167 host, I click on the Stage button to stage patches for installation. After I get to the Patch and Extension Exclusion page, I get this message when I click Next:

"Some of the patches you selected for remediation are not available. Do you wish to continue?"

I click no, and then see that some of the patches listed have a Patch Available status of false. I'm curious why that is. If the patch is not available, why does Update Manager select it to be staged to my host? Was the unavailable patch superseded by another patch? What causes a patch to not be available? Is the patch downloaded if the availability is false? If so, will it be cleaned up eventually?

If I uncheck all the unavailable patches and click Next, everything stages without errors. Just curious how Update Manager is working in this situation.

Thanks !

[AndreTheGiant]

What causes a patch to not be available?

When is not yet downloaded.

Maybe you have you attach the baseline and made the host scan and then have made the stage?

Andre

[andoven]

I did a scan before I staged the patches, and then attempted to stage the patches. During staging is when it said the patches were not available. After I unchecked all the false patches and staged the true patches, I was able to remediate the server. After the server finished remediation, I did another scan, which shows I am compliant with no outstanding patches. Over 60 patches were listed as false and had to be unchecked before I could finish staging.

[AndreTheGiant]

Have you tried to force the patch download from Update Manager settings?

In those plugin you can also che network connectivity.

Andre

[andoven]

I only applied critical host patches to most of our vSphere hosts, but update manager downloaded both critical and non-critical patches. If I don't add a host to the non-critical patch baseline, that could be why it makes the patch availability read false. I have one host that is a member of both baselines. When I staged patches for that server, I did not receive an error.

I tried forcing Update Mgr to download outstanding patches, but I didn't see anything happen.