You can configure port, IP, and DNS settings during the installation of Update Manager. Those settings do not depend on your deployment model.

Default Network Ports

You can configure the network port settings during installation or change them later to avoid conflicts with other applications installed on the same physical machine.

Table 1. Update Manager Default Network Ports
TCP Port Number Description
80 The port used by Update Manager to connect to vCenter Server.

This is also the port used by Update Manager to connect to the ESXi host.
9084 The port used by ESXi hosts to access host patch downloads over HTTP.
902 The port used by Update Manager to push host upgrade files.
8084 The port used by Update Manager Client plug-in to connect to the Update Manager SOAP server.
9087 The HTTPS port used by Update Manager Client plug-in to upload host upgrade files.

IP Address and DNS Name

The Update Manager network settings include the IP address or DNS name that the update utility on hosts uses to retrieve the patch metadata and binaries from the Update Manager server through HTTP. You can configure the IP address during installation or you can change it later.

Important: To avoid any potential DNS resolution problems, use an IP address whenever possible. If you must use a DNS name instead of an IP address, ensure that the DNS name you specify can be resolved by all hosts managed by Update Manager and by vCenter Server. This network configuration is not preserved after a reboot or restart of the Update Manager service.

Update Manager supports Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) environments for scanning and remediating hosts running ESXi 6.0 and later. Update Manager does not support IPv6 for scanning and remediating virtual machines.

vCenter Server, Update Manager, and your ESXi hosts might exist in a heterogeneous IPv6 and IPv4 network environment. In such an environment, if you use IP addresses and no dual-stack IPv4 or IPv6 DNS servers exist, the ESXi hosts that are configured to use only IPv4 address cannot access the IPv6 network resources. The hosts configured to use only IPv6 cannot access the IPv4 network resources.

You can install Update Manager on a physical machine on which both IPv4 and IPv6 are enabled. During host operations such as scanning, staging, and remediation, Update Manager provides the address of its patch store location to the ESXi hosts. If Update Manager is configured to use an IP address, it provides an IP address of either the IPv4 or IPv6 type, and can be accessed only by some of the hosts. For example, if Update Manager provides an IPv4 address, the hosts that use only an IPv6 address cannot access the Update Manager patch store. In such a case, consider the following configuration.

Table 2. Update Manager Configuration
Host IP Version Action
IPv4 Configure Update Manager to use either an IPv4 address or a host name. Using a host name lets all hosts rely on the DNS server to resolve to an IPv4 address.
IPv6 Configure Update Manager to use either an IPv6 address or a host name. Using a host name lets hosts rely on the DNS server to resolve to an IPv6 address.
IPv4 and IPv6 Configure Update Manager to use either IPv4 or IPv6.