How to update VMware ESX patch using CLI

Using VMware Update Manager is pretty easy for VMware patch update but I would like to share about how to update VMware ESX patch using command line interface here as an alternative way.
First download VMware patch from VMware download web site said for an example:
VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2
Latest Version: 3.5 Update 2 | 8/13/2008 | Build: 110268
Login with your username & password and click YES for agree with VMware Inc. term and condition.

Option 1:
Once completed the VMware patch download, you can either copy the patch source file to Apache or IIS web server and unzip it said http://your.webserver.com/esxupdate/
Before continue with VMware ESX host patch, you can vmotion all VMware guest from ESX host 1 to VMware ESX host

2. Connect to VMware ESX host 1 box using SSH,

Enter server maintenance mode:
vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Tips: How can I check whether ESX host is in maintenance mode.
vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/runtimeinfo | grep inMaintenanceMode | awk ‘{print $3}’

Turn Off Firewall:
esxcfg-firewall –allowOutgoing


ESX patch update:
esxupdate -r http://your.webserver.com/esxupdate/ update

Option 2:
Copy patch source files into ESX host itself said for an example folder /download/esxupdate

Enter maintenance mode:
vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Turn Off Firewall:
esxcfg-firewall –allowOutgoing

ESX patch update:
cd /download/esxupdate; esxupdate update

Login another SSH session and monitor patch update log:
tail -f esxupdate.log

Let’s wait for a while and VMware host patch should be in progress now. The ESX host should be reboot once the patch completed.

Turn On Firewall:
esxcfg-firewall –blockOutgoing

Exit maintenance mode:
vimsh -n -e /hostsvc/maintenance_mode_exit

Again, we can check ESX host patch update using command:
cat /proc/vmware/version
OR
vmware -v
OR
esxupdate -l query

Congratulation! You’re done. You should have latest VMware ESX patch now!
Please feel free to comment to make it more useful to everyone.

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