Standalone ESXi 5 Host Upgrade
Have an ESXi host which is a standalone box? No VMware Update Manager? No vMA?
Well, they still require patches. Luckily enough, you can still use the stripped down version of the console which is included in ESXi to update it.
Start by heading out to the VMware Patches portal http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal and download the neccessary patches for the server that needs patched.
Upload the patch zip file to a datastore that the server can talk to via either SCP or the datastore browser
Next, make sure the SSH service has been started.
To do this while in the vSphere Client, click on the desired host, and click on the "Configuration" tab followed by the "Security Profile" link in the "Software" box, then click on "Properties" in the top right side.
Highlight "SSH" and then click "Options", after the SSH Options screen pops up, click on "Start", then click "OK" twice to get back to the Configuration tab.
After getting connected to the ESXi host, run the command: esxcli software vib install -d *full path to uploaded zip*
Example: esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/VMO-01 Datastore/Temp/update-from-esxi5.0-5.0_update01.zip
There should be a message showing that the update was completed successfully and that the system needs to be rebooted.
If ready to reboot, type in "reboot" and the system will reboot. Just remember to check to make sure that the SSH service has been stopped when it boots back up.
One error that I ran into, if you don't give the full path to the zip file containing the update, the patching will fail with a "MetadataDownloadError" reading:
Could not download from depot at zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml, skipping (('zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml', '', "Error extracting index.xml from :/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml'"))
url = zip:/var/log/vmware/*update name*.zip?index.xml
Please refer to the log file for more details.
Once I put in the full path, it worked just fine.
Upcoming Events
Recent Posts
- PowerCLI – Copying PortGroups from a Standard vSwitch to a Distributed vSwitch
- PowerCLI – Rescan HBAs for a Cluster on a Host by Host Basis
- PowerCLI – Analyze a Cluster to Move VMs to a Resource Pool
- Fusion-IO Caching Tests…
- Updating the Fusion-IO firmware…
Certifications
My Home Lab vMetrics
10 GHz Total CPU 
16 GB Total RAM 
7,578 GB Total Disk
1 Host(s)
1 RPs
8 VMs
0 vMotions
(4) 
(4) 
(0)
3 Physical NICs
3 Virtual PGs
Tags
5.1.1 2008 R2 2008R2 6510E 8024F Data Recovery Dell EQL Equallogic ESXi ESXi 5 firmware Fusion-IO HIT HIT/VE HIT Kit install iSCSI MEM Microsoft Multipathing OVA OVF plugin PowerCLI PowerConnect Round Robin Server snapshot Update Manager Upgrade vCenter vDR VirtualCenter Virtual Center vMotion VMUG VMware VMworld vSphere vSphere 5 VSS vSwitch VUM Windows
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck requires Flash Player 9 or better.
June 6th, 2012 - 09:30
Hey, I ended up with the MetabaseDownloadError that you posted at the end. I went back and verifired the path and typed it in multiple times just incase and the same error keeps comming up. Know of any other reasons this might be??
thanks
July 12th, 2012 - 09:48
Thanks a lot! By following your steps I managed to update my LAB ESXi server.
Before upgrade:
~ # vmware -v
VMware ESXi 5.0.0 build-469512
After upgrade:
~ # vmware -v
VMware ESXi 5.0.0 build-623860
Question is: Can I revert back to the previous build?
TIA
July 16th, 2012 - 10:34
I do believe you can, but I have never tried it.
software vib remove
Removes VIB packages from the host. WARNING: If your installation requires a reboot, you need to disable HA first.
The rest of the options are located: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vcli.ref.doc_50%2Fesxcli_software.html
August 6th, 2012 - 16:24
You can roll-back to the pre-upgrade image:
Using the DCUI is the supported and recommended way to rollback your ESXi image. From the ESXi host console reboot the host, at the very beginning of the boot, when you see the boot options prompt (), press SHIFT+R to enter recovery mode, and when prompted answer “y” to confirm that you want to revert back to the previous image profile.
http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2012/03/free-esxi-hypervisor-auto-start-breaks-with-50-update-1.html
July 16th, 2012 - 11:49
Thanks for the reply Kyle.
August 7th, 2012 - 11:12
Thanks to both of you
January 28th, 2013 - 11:29
Thank you. I kept on getting the metadata error not realizing that I need to put the whole path in.
February 18th, 2013 - 23:45
Thanks! useful post..
April 26th, 2013 - 05:36
regarding the “MetadataDownloadError” please note pathtext is case sensitive!
So check upper/lowercase in your path.
regards Carsten
May 6th, 2013 - 10:41
Thanks! The error went away after putting the full path in the command line. I believe the confusion is from the VMware docs stating you should navigate to the folder where the patch resides. Not sure why it can’t figure that out on it’s own.