Staging allows you to download the patches and extensions from the Update Manager server to the ESXi hosts, without applying the patches and extensions immediately. Staging patches and extensions speeds up the remediation process because the patches and extensions are already available locally on the hosts.

You can reduce the downtime during remediation, by staging patches and extensions whose installation requires that a host enters maintenance mode. Staging patches and extensions itself does not require that the hosts enter maintenance mode.

Patches cannot be staged if they are obsoleted by patches in the baselines or baseline groups for the same stage operation. Update Manager stages only patches that it can install in a subsequent remediation process, based on the present scan results of the host. If a patch is obsoleted by patches in the same selected patch set, the obsoleted patch is not staged.

If a patch is in conflict with the patches in the Update Manager patch repository and is not in conflict with the host, after a scan, Update Manager reports this patch as a conflicting one. You can stage the patch to the host and after the stage operation, Update Manager reports this patch as staged.

During the stage operation, Update Manager performs prescan and postscan operations, and updates the compliance state of the baseline.

After you stage patches or extensions to hosts, you should remediate the hosts against all staged patches or extensions.

After a successful remediation of hosts, the host deletes all staged patches or extensions from its cache regardless of whether they were applied during the remediation. The compliance state of patches or extensions that were staged but not applied to the to the hosts reverts from Staged to its previous value.

Important: Staging patches and extensions is supported for hosts that are running ESXi 5.0 and later. You can stage patches to PXE booted ESXi hosts, but if the host is restarted prior to remediation, the staged patches will be lost and you will have to stage them again.

Prerequisites

To stage patches or extensions to hosts, first attach a patch or extension baseline or a baseline group containing patches and extensions to the host.

To stage patches or extensions to ESXi hosts, you need the Stage Patches and Extensions privilege. For more information about managing users, groups, roles, and permissions, see vCenter Server and Host Management. For a list of Update Manager privileges and their descriptions, see Update Manager Privileges.

Procedure

  1. Use the vSphere Web Client to log in to a vCenter Server Appliance, or to a vCenter Server system with which Update Manager is registered.
  2. From the inventory object navigator, select a data center, a cluster, or a host, and click the Update Manager tab.
  3. Click Stage.
    The Stage Patches wizard opens.
  4. On the Baseline Selection page of the Stage wizard, select the patch and extension baselines to stage.
  5. Select the hosts where patches and extensions will be applied and click Next.
    If you select to stage patches and extensions to a single host, it is selected by default.
  6. (Optional) Deselect the patches and extensions to exclude from the stage operation.
  7. (Optional) To search within the list of patches and extensions, enter text in the text box in the upper-right corner.
  8. Click Next.
  9. Review the Ready to Complete page and click Finish.

Results

The number of the staged patches and extensions for the specific host is displayed in the Patches and Extensions columns in the bottom pane of the Update Manager tab.

After a remediation is successfully completed, all staged patches and extensions, whether installed or not during the remediation, are deleted from the host.