In one of my test labs I have a stand-alone ESXi 6.5 VM server and it was time to make sure it was upgraded and patched.
Since this particular server is not managed by a vCenter, I could not use the Update Manager. I also didn’t have a burner handy, so I decided not to go the bootable ISO method.
The method I went with was using the Offline Bundle.
I found these instructions on Mike Tabor’s blog here. So props to Mike!
First download the VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 6.5 Update 2 Offline Bundle from VMware. These instructions should work with future updates as well – so if they have released U3 or later I would use the newer release.
Now onto the actual update:
- Upload the ZIP file to a datastore the ESX host can reach – if possible, I would recommend a local datastore but that is not a requirement.
- Enable SSH on your ESXi host
- Put your ESXi host into Maintenance Mode
- Shutdown or migrate all of your active VMs to ensure the host is quiet
- SSH into your ESX host
- Run the following command. Be sure the path references your datastore and the ZIP file you put there
esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORE/update-from-esxi6.5-6.5_update02.zip - Once that completes, you just need to reboot the box
reboot - After the reboot, exit Maintenance Mode and power on the needed VMs.
You are now running the latest update.
I hope this guide helps. I know it will help me the next time I need to do an upgrade.