Thursday, March 30, 2017

How to patch a standalone ESXi 6.5 host

We received an email from Homeland Security regarding a severe vulnerability in ESXi that could allow a guest to execute code on an ESXi host. VMSA-2017-0006

 http://www.vmware.com/security/advisories/VMSA-2017-0006.html


Patching is swift and easy using VMware Update Manager.  However, I recently stood up a standalone vSphere Hypervisor 6.5 host for testing.

For the record, ESXi patches are cumulative.

Here are the steps I took to patch this host.

1. Download applicable patches (Log in required).
http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal 

Edit:  On Jan 10th 2018, I had to use the following link:
https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch#search

2. Upload the patches into the local datastore of the host you wish to patch.   I placed them in a folder called "patches" in the datastore:

3. Place the host in Maintenance Mode.

4. Enable ESXi Shell/SSH and log into the server.

5.  Run the following command for each patch to be installed:
esxcli software vib install -d "/vmfs/volumes/Datastore/DirectoryName/PatchName.zip" 

 6. Run the reboot command.
reboot

7. Confirm the patches have been installed by running:
vmware -vl

Or, by looking at the version in the client:

8. Disable ESXi Shell/SSH

9.  Exit Maintenance mode and confirm functionality.


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6 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 13, 2017 at 1:25 PM

    Thank you very much for this. I was looking for a simple and concise walk-through on how to patch my single ESXi host, and this worked perfectly.

    Thanks again

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJanuary 19, 2018 at 7:50 AM

    The images aren't showing but I was still able to use your instructions to perform the command line updates. Thanks much!

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 16, 2018 at 12:20 PM

    March 2018 (a year later) and the topic is still relative and the data is accurate!! Thank you the post. It worked very and saved me a lot of time. Appreciate it..

    ReplyDelete
  4. ClaussenDBMay 7, 2018 at 11:54 AM

    Thank You !

    Do you know of a similar procedure for HP updates on this standalone host? I cannot find a nice ZIP with everything in it, just MANY individual vib files.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownMay 12, 2021 at 4:44 PM

    Just wanted to thank you as this is a great overview and still a top search result, and add:
    If you are running a custom image, like a "Dell ISO" version of ESXi, do not use "install". Instead, use "update" in it's place to make sure any vendor specific drivers are retained.

    ReplyDelete

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