This came up in the comments to one of my other posts, so I though I’d share.

Note: The Host Update Utility was depreciated with 4.1, so if you came here looking for that… my apologies.

The vSphere Host Update Utility, as far as I can tell is not actually offered as a separate download, but is rather bundled with the vSphere client and is a selectable option during installation. As admins most of us are trained to ignore these extra screens (after-all, who wants yet another Friendster toolbar installed?). This one is safe however, promise!

Now that we’ve upgraded our client and installed it on Windows 7, let’s upgrade our ESX or ESXi host:

1. Fire up Host Update Utility & Download new Patches from VMware:

2. Scan for updates:

3. OMG Patches! Lets Patch the host (Make sure the host is in maint mode first!):

4. Install FTW!

5. Now comes the progress bars! (It’s applying the patches):

6. And done!

Questions? Drop a line in the comments.

One of the great things about working in IT, is that software will always need to be updated. If it didn’t, some of us would need to find a new line of work. Just because it needs updating, does not mean we have to like it. In fact, most vendor update processes are needlessly obtuse. Luckily for us VMware helps us along, providing several mechanisms for updates, each offering varying degrees of automation. One of my new favorite bits of awesome here is the “VMware vSphere Host Update Utility”, a needlessly long name for a simple process:

Downloading the patches

I believe the answer to this is yes. What do you think? With this, the Host Update Utility reaches out to VMware’s site and starts pulling down the needed updates (complete with a progress bar:

Adding a host

Simple is as simple does Forest.

Scanning & Updating

Here it gets a bit more fun. Taking a look at where we are now:

Clicking scan prompts for your user and password, then scans. Here’s the result:

Lets upgrade! (Note: The host needs to be in maintenance mode for this part to work)

Install & Grab a Coffee. You’ve earned it.

If like me you accepted most of the defaults the first go around when installing VMware’s Update Manager, you may have found yourself in a situation where there is not enough disk space to contain all of the files. Should this happen, and you need to change the location, you can edit the settings XML file:

“C:\Program Files\VMware\Infrastructure\Update Manager\vci-integrity.xml”

There are two locations you need to edit, <patchstore> and <path> under <docRootHostUpdates>.

Here is an example:

After changing these and restarting the Update Manager service you should be in good shape. NOTE: You may want to copy all of the files from the old location to the new one.

Source: gabesvirtualworld.com

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