One way to update a vSphere 5 host from CLI

Every time a new version comes out, I have to dig up this procedure, so I figured I’d post it for quicker reference next time.

If you have a vSphere Update Manager in your environment, use it, if not, here is one method to update a host: (using ESXi-5.0.0-20120302001-standard.zip in this case)

1. Locate the Offline Bundle with the desired version or create an image profile from it that includes additional vibs you may need.
2. Copy that zip file to a datastore that the host to be upgraded has access to.
3. Use the vSphere CLI on a local machine and vMA to run this command to determine the profiles contained in the bundle
   

   esxcli --server=<host IP> --username=root --password=<password> software sources profile list --depot="[DATASTORE]ESXi-5.0.0-20120302001-standard.zip"

   Returns “ESXi-5.0.0-20120302001-standard”, “ESXi-5.0.0-20120302001-no-tools”; we’re going to use “standard” in this case.

4. Put the host in maintenance mode
   

   vicfg-hostops.pl --server=<host IP> --username=root --password=<password> --operation enter

5. Apply update to host using profile
   

   esxcli --server=<host IP> --username=root --password=<password>software profile update --depot="[DATASTORE] update-from-esxi5.0-5.0_update01.zip" --profile="ESXi-5.0.0-20120302001-standard"

6. Reboot the host
   

   vicfg-hostops.pl --server=<host IP> --username=root --password=<password> --operation reboot