Manually install patches on your standalone VMware ESXi 5.1 host

02/08/2013By , , , ,

It’s relatively easy to install patches and updates on a standalone VMware ESXi 5.1 host.

  1. Get the update(s) from the VMware Patch Portal
  2. Upload the zip files to your datastore.
  3. Shutdown all of your virtual machines and put the host in maintenance mode.
  4. Connect to your host using an SSH client (make sure SSH is enabled on your host).
  5. Use the command: # esxcli software vib install -d “/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip” to install the patch. Where “PatchName.zip”  is the name of the patch file you uploaded to the datastore.
    For example: # esxcli software vib install -d “/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/patch-directory/ESXi500-201111001.zip”
  6. It can take a while to install a patch if you’re using a slow USB storage device or SD card where your ESXi installation is located.
  7. After the installation you’ll get a message that the installation has successfully completed.
  8. Reboot your host.