Patching ESX3.5

[NSITPS]

What are the commands to manually apply a patch to ESX3.5 hosts?

Also, the patch I have is a *.zip file - should it not be *.tar file?

[Lightbulb · Accepted solution]

Check out this link

A zip is fine just decompress and copy to staging directory on your host.

Message was edited by: Lightbulb Spelling Arrgh

[suprauche]

You should unzip those patch files and also the contents.zip file into the depot directory and then you should use these commands to apply your patches.

Depot directory could be on your esx server or on another server. If you create this folder on another system then share that folder and make useable to your esx system. You can you nfs for example.

esxupdate --test update This command checks if the patch files will be applied correctly. Does not apply any patches, just for testing purpose.

esxupdate update This command installs the patches you put into your depot directory.

You should put your esx system into maintanance mode, so shutdown your vm's before apply your patches. After the installation of those patches the system will reboot itself and you should manually change your maintenance settings back and start your virtual machines.

[MKguy]

Patching hosts manually is very well and thoroughly documented in the ESX Server 3 Patch Management Guide:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_esxupdate.pdf

[NSITPS]

- What do you mean by contents.zip?

[_David]

contents.zip is an xml file containing info about patches its used by esxupdate

I prefer patching with an ftp.

Set up an ftp on one of your vms. Filezilla works perfectly. Allow anonymous login and extract all patches and contents.zip to the root dir of the ftp.

Make a shell script. update.sh with the following information.

-

---

esxcfg-firewall --allowIncoming

esxcfg-firewall --allowOutgoing

esxupdate -d -n update

esxcfg-firewall --blockIncoming

esxcfg-firewall --blockOutgoing

-

---

chmod 777 update.sh

And copy it to all your ESX servers. Just run it to start the patching.

./update.sh

Please award points if you find the answer helpful

[Lightbulb]

Also check out this

http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/03/vmware-autopatching-your-esx-host.html

I setup this patchng mechnisim once at home (At work we use a far more annoying method) and it works great.You do need an IIS system.

[suprauche]

In the vmware download patches page you would see the contents.zip file above the patches. Whenever a patch is added, this contents file is updated. So you should always download the latest contents.zip file before applying a patch. You should extract this file into the directory you put the patches in.