Table of Contents
VMware ESX - Patching
VMware - Correlating VMware product build numbers to update levels (1014508)
vSphere-land - Release/Build Info (not up to date)
VMware ESXi Patch Tracker
Documentation
VMware.com - Patch Management for ESX Server 3 (PDF) documentation about the esxupdate command of ESX 3.x.x.
Support Articles
Host scan using vCenter Update Manager 5.0.x fails at 30% (2016331) with error “The uploaded upgrade package cannot be used with VMware vSphere Update Manager”.
Patch and Update classification schemes for VMware ESX/ESXi 4.x and ESXi 5.x (2014447)
“esxcli software vib” commands to patch an ESXi 5.x/6.x host (2008939)
Understanding ESXi 5.x and 6.0 Patching Model (2083707) answers the question if patches are cumulative. Update[01-99] are cumulative, patches are not.
VMware Security Patching Guidelines for ESX and ESXi (2020972)
Blogposts/Articles
ESX Virtualization - ESXi Free – how to upgrade to ESXi 5.1
ESX Virtualization - How to patch ESXi 5 without vCenter
running-system.com - How to install a HP CPxxxxxx.scexe firmware update on your ESXi Host
running-system.com - Running ESXi 5.x on HP hardware? Take care of the used HP-AMS version!
The Lone Sysadmin - Latest ESXi Turns Off Transparent Page Sharing, So Watch Your RAM:
- Pcli.me - Check How Much Host Memory You Are Saving With TPS (Transparent Page Sharing). a PowerCLI script to check how much extra RAM will be used when TPS is off.
ESX 3.5 and lower
vmprofessional - esx-autopatch.pl (dead link?) script for patching ESX hosts. Can get the updates from an ftp- or http-server.
If you get the “Bad interpreter” error when executing the script with ./esx-autopatch.pl, try it like this:
/usr/bin/perl esx-autopatch.pl
Patch 3i without VirtualCenter
VMTSPatchManager the “Windows Update” for VMware© ESX 3.x.
Other solutions:
Virtrix - VMware: (Auto)patching your ESX host with extracted patches on an IIS web server.
VM /ETC - Update and Auto Patch ESX
Script to install ESX / VI3 patch