VMware: Install vSphere 5 update 1 with PowerCLI

Today I’ve updated my vSphere 5 hosts witch patch 1 released one week ago. Before I started the build number was VMware ESXi 5.0.0 469512:

To update the host I used PowerCLI, the code:

Get-VMHost esx02.vmpros.lan | Set-VMHost -State Maintenance
$DataStore = Get-VMHost esx02.vmpros.lan | Get-Datastore ESX02_VMFS01
Copy-DatastoreItem C:\vmpros\patch1\ $DataStore.DatastoreBrowserPath -Recurse
Get-VMHost esx02.vmpros.lan | Install-VMHostPatch -Hostpath "/vmfs/volumes/ESX02_VMFS01/patch1/metadata.zip"

The script will upload the content of the update-from-esxi5.0-5.0_update01.zip located at your local computer (which running  PowerCLI) to the selected datastore. Then the update installation will start.

Update installation process:

WARNING: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.

… reboot the host

The ESXi host is back online, with build number 623860

The update is succeeded!

To patch multiple servers at once, you can run the following script:

$ESXiHost01 = "esx01.vmpros.lan"
$ESXiHost02 = "esx02.vmpros.lan"
$ESXiHost03 = "esx03.vmpros.lan"

Get-VMHost $ESXiHost01,$ESXiHost02,$ESXiHost03 | Set-VMHost -State Maintenance
$DataStore = Get-VMHost esx02.vmpros.lan | Get-Datastore ESX02_VMFS01
Copy-DatastoreItem C:\vmpros\patch1\ $DataStore.DatastoreBrowserPath -Recurse
Get-VMHost $ESXiHost01,$ESXiHost02,$ESXiHost03 | Install-VMHostPatch -Hostpath "/vmfs/volumes/VMFS01/patch1/metadata.zip"

^ Make sure the update package is placed on central storage

More information about VMHostPatch: VMware

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Sander

Sander Daems is founder and author of this blog and working as a Lead (Sr.) Consultant / Technical Project Lead at Unica ICT Solutions. Sander has 15+ years experience in IT, primary focus: virtualization, security and modern worksplace.

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