How to Patch a Standalone ESXi Host

In this video, we show you how to patch a standalone ESXi host

Unless you are managing a VMware ESXi server through vCenter then the hypervisor will be a standalone server

And to update and patch a standalone server we need to run a command from the CLI to apply a patch we download from VMware

Useful links:

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Steps taken
1) Download patch
Point your web browser to the following URL and login to your VMware account
Now, from the "Select a Product" drop down menu select ESXi (Embedded and installable)
By default this will be set for the latest major version, which at the time of recording is 7.0, but you can change this in the drop down menu
Click the Search button and it will return all patches that are available for that version
If it's too recent, then it's usually not a good idea to install it because when developers fix code, there is always the risk they'll create a new bug
Choose the patch you'll use, then click on the Download Now button to download the zip file
NOTE: Web browsers like Brave will result in an error message. You have to disable the Shield to allow cookies, trackers, etc.
Basically, VMware will restrict download access if you disable analytics

2) Upload patch to ESXi
The next thing to do is to upload the patch to a datastore the hypervisor has access to
In this example, we'll use the local storage
Login to your ESXi server, click on Storage and then select the Datastore
Copy and paste the location details for this datastore as we'll need this later
Click Datastore browser, then click Upload
Select the depot file you downloaded and click Open
Once the upload is complete you can click the Close button

3) Shutdown VMs
Because we are carrying out maintenance, gracefully shutdown any VMs that are running on this server

4) Connect using SSH
To apply the patch we need to open a remote console to the server using SSH
Click on Host then from the Actions menu select Services | Enable Secure Shell (SSH)
Now connect to the server using SSH and login as root

5) Pre-stage patch
Next we'll run a command to pre-stage the patch, but we need to know the image profile name
As this is a standard edition of VMware we're running, we'll use ESXi-7.0U3c-19193900-standard for this patch release
Now, if we'd opted for 7.0U2d instead it would be ESXi-7.0U2d-18538813-standard
We also need the location of the patch, which hopefully you copied in a previous step
The command for me to then run is as follows

The last parameter is optional and is to disable the hardware warning as I already know about a CPU support risk

6) Reboot and update server
At this stage the patch isn't applied and it requires a reboot
As a best practice you should now put the server into Maintenance mode first
Back in the ESXi GUI, click Host then click Actions and select Enter maintenance mode
This is to make sure the server comes up in a stable state and VMs aren't started as soon as it's ready
As long as no VMs are running, reboot the server by clicking the Reboot option
Once the server is back up, login into the GUI and click Host
You should now see the version has changed, due to the upgrade
You can now disable maintenance mode by clicking Actions and selecting Exit maintenance mode
The server is now updated and ready to use

Credits:
LoveLife | Instrumental Prod. Blue Mango | EQMUSEQ.COM by Don Da Vinci

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How to Patch a Standalone ESXi Host

00:00 Intro
00:32 Download patch from VMware
07:40 Upload patch to ESXi
09:22 Shutdown VMs
10:00 Enable SSH service
12:07 Pre-stage patch
16:42 Maintenance mode and reboot
18:55 Undo maintenance mode

[TechTutorialsDavidMcKone]

Although you can use VMware's ESXi hypervisor for free, you are expected to pay for vCenter to manage multiple servers. But if you have just a standalone server, you can still update ESXi and it's free

[robertoandion]

Second time I've used this video to update my Standalone ESXi Host. Very detailed, thanks again!

[AceGoes]

Thank you so much! This worked for me. Microsoft released a KB update that breaks VMs booting in UEFI secure mode, so I needed to update ESXi to version 7.03K. Your video was very thorough and easy to comprehend. My VMs are back online! Thanks again

[blvckblanco]

David thanks for your hospitality to do and share this videos, i passed all the morning reading a lot of how i can apply the last patches releases to esxi.
Regards

[robert]

Appreciate your thorough explanation. I'm new to working on servers and was having the hardest time updating from 6.5 to 7.0. Big thanks!

[howardberesford]

This was a great video, I actually worked along with to update my stand alone host. Thanks for this work.!!

[houseaccount]

Thanks David. Great video and really appreciated the written instructions in the comments. Worked perfectly!

[BigHeadClan]

Excellent video sir, new to ESXi side of things and was having issues getting a test VM up and running in my home lab.

[jamesstone]

Thank you! I've been struggling with this issue for a little over a week and your video showed me what I was doing wrong! Thank you!

[TanCoyote]

Good procedure, easy to follow. Helped me patch my ESXi 8 server!

[Phelper]

Great walk thought, it worked! I was a little worried I'd have to learn how to exit maintenance mode from the DCUI as I virtualize my network router on the esxi machine, but was able to log right back into the webgui for esxi. Thanks!

[plaushvar]

Thank you! Helped me patch a critical vulnerability in my homelab

[petter]

Thanks for this excellent walkthrough. Much appreciated!

[bernardstef]

Thanks for the video !! Updated to the latest version today !

[michaelcooper]

Hello David, another great video. Thanks. Have an awesome day sir!

[kodemasterx]

Thank you kindly sir, this was very helpful and well explained as well.

[Thomasthesane]

Thanks, the exact video i needed! Very useful indeed.

[mrdan]

Incredily helpful thank you for the assistant!

[SebastianCalle-xrtv]

This video has been very helpful, a question David, are you using Linux or Mac? What distro?

[sykstyx-potentialunbound]

quick one do i have to install patches in sequence or i can skip to the more recent ones if there is a gap?