Update standalone ESX host

If you have a client that just has 1 ESX host then you have to manually update your esx host since you don’t have any update manager or vcenter available

Here are steps to update your esx host

In this example im upgrading from esx 5.1 tot 5.5 u1

  1. Shutdown all VM’s
  2. Put the esx host in maintenance mode
  3. Enable ssh access on your esx host
  4. Open http firewall port for outgoing traffic in Configuration – Security Profile – Firewall (section)esx firewall
    Or use esxcli command: esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient
  1. use follwing esxi shell command to update your esx host, you can use putty for this
    esxcli software profile update –d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml-p ESXi-5.5.0-20140302001-standard
    (just wait a few min to see the update start.)
  2. Reboot your host
  3. Use VMware – v to see the new version is installed
  4. Boot up your vm’s if they are not o auto restart