For those wanting to patch 1 or 2 ESX 3.5 hosts, without the luxury of Virtual Centre and Update Manager etc.
- Download all the ESX350-YYYYMMxxx-xx.zip files AND equally importantly, the latest ESX-3.5.0-contents.zip from the VMware web site.
- Expand all the files to the following hierarchy:
/ESX350_updates
contents.xml
contents.xml.sig
/ESX350-YYYYMMxxx-XX
contents.xml
contents.xml.sig
descriptor.xml
/headers
...
/ESX350-YYYYMMxxx-XX
contents.xml
contents.xml.sig
descriptor.xml
/headers
...
As you add more packages, increase the sub directories, eg ESX350-YYYYMMxxx-xx and replace the contents.xml and contents.xml.sig files in the repository root directory.
- Validate the packages to be deployed. As root or sudo user, navigate to the repository root directory, ie the one containing just the two contents files and run the following command [#esxupdate --test update]
- Install the packages to be deployed. As root or sudo user, navigate to the repository root directory, ie the one containing just the two contents files and run the following command [#esxupdate --noreboot update]
- Reboot when complete (if reboot was required by patches) [#reboot]
Thats it - not exactly an exhaustive process and certainly glossed over what to expect if you experience anything other than a 'good to go' message on the --test update.
May save a little digging around though!