Patch a VMware ESXI host with the ESXCLI command and choose the right image profile

When installing a patch on a VMware ESXi host using the ESXCLI command you need to specify the image profile that is available in the ESXi patch.

Here are the steps for patching a VMware ESXi host with the correct image profile:

  • Go to the Customer Connect Patch Downloads page.
  • Download the patch needed, In this example, I use ESXi patch VMware-ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-depot.zip
  • Upload the patch to a datastore
  • Make a SSH connection to the ESXi host
  • Place the host in maintenance mode
esxcli system maintenanceMode set –enable-true
  • Now you need to know which image profiles are available in the VMware ESXi patch. To do this use the following command (replace the with your datastore):
esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/iso/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3q-22348816-depot.zip
  • The following profiles are listed. As you can see the image profile contains 4 image profiles:

esxcli_profile

  • Here is a table with so, 0, standard, and no-tools means:
OptionDetails
standardWith VMware Tools included
no-toolsWithout VMware Tools
sqSecurity updates only image
qSecurity and Bugfix update image
  • To install the ESXi with security and bugfix updates without VMware Tools use the following command (replace the with your datastore):
esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/VMware-ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-depot.zip -p ESXi-7.0U3o-22348816-no-tools
  • Reboot the host
esxcli system shutdown reboot -r "Patch ESXi 7.0U3"
  • When the host is back, exit maintenance mode,  make a SSH connection to the ESXi host
esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false

With this procedure, you can specify the right image profile when manually patching an ESXi host.