Before you install available patches, you can stage the patches to the appliance. You can use the Appliance Management Interface to stage patches either from a local repository by attaching an ISO image to the appliance, or from a remote repository directly by using a repository URL.

Prerequisites

  • If you are staging patches from an ISO image that you previously downloaded from https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch, you must attach the ISO image to the CD/DVD drive of the vCenter Server Appliance. You can configure the ISO image as a datastore ISO file for the CD/DVD drive of the appliance by using the vSphere Web Client. See vSphere Virtual Machine Administration.
  • If you are staging patches from a remote repository, verify that you have configured the repository settings and that the current repository URL is accessible. See Configure URL-Based Patching.

Procedure

  1. Log into the vCenter Server Appliance Management Interface as root.
    The default root password is the password you set while deploying the vCenter Server Appliance.
  2. Click Update.
  3. Click Check Updates and select a source.
    Option Description
    Check URL Scans the configured repository URL for available patches
    Check CDROM Scans the ISO image that you attached to the CD/DVD drive of the appliance for available patches
    In the Available Updates pane, you can view the details about the available patches in the source that you selected.
    Important: Some updates might require a reboot of the system. You can see information about these updates in the Available updates pane.
  4. You can run a pre-check of an update to verify that it is compatible with your current deployment.
  5. Click the staging option you would like to use.
    Option Description
    Stage Only Stages the selected patches to the appliance for installation at a later time.
    Stage and Install Stages and installs the selected patches to the appliance. For more information on installing patches, see Install vCenter Server Appliance Patches.

    In the process of staging, the Appliance Management Interface validates that a patch is a VMware patch, that the staging area has enough free space, and that the patches are not altered. Only completely new patches or patches for existing packages that can be upgraded are staged.

What to do next

If you chose to stage the available patches for installation at a later time, you can now install. See Install vCenter Server Appliance Patches.