Another Day Another Patch..

Life in Missouri is always great on the health. (no not really) The weather likes to change quickly and the mold count is always high. So right now I have a head cold. It makes this work more challenging that it should.

Yesterday I set up a Web Server to hold the ESX patches. Once the ESX-1003525 (for version 3.0.2) is loaded the rollup packages work pretty great. Here is a crib notes version on how to set this up.

1. Take your everyday Linux build and load Apache.
2. Once Apache is loaded, find the directory that the web content goes into. (/var/www/html for RedHat EL 5)
3. Create a sub directory for the ESX patches. I used the crazy name of "esx"
4. Edit to the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.. Find the section "Listen" and change the port after Listen to something you like.. I used 8080 so that it is not as vunerable.
5. After saving the httpd.conf file, type "service httpd restart" to restart Apache
6. You should now be able to open a web browser to the http://my_web_server:8080/esx directory.
7. Use WinSCP or something else to move the packages to the esx directory on the web server.
8. Un-TAR the patch files
9. Check the connection from the web browser again, you should be able to see the patch files.

Now on the ESX server to be patched:
1. Open the ESX firewall type "esxcfg-firewall -o port_number,tcp,out,httpConnection" this will open the firewall to allow the esxupdate to connect to the web server.
2. Now type "esxupdate -d http://my_web_server:8080/esx/ESX302-Rollup-01 update"
3. The esxupdate will check for the contents.xml file in the directory and will install all the files listed in it.

Note: More details on the esxupdate command can be found by typing esxupdate without anything else.

Hope this helps someone!