VMware regularly releases patches for the vCenter Server. You can use the Appliance Management Interface or the appliance shell to apply patches to a vCenter Server.

VMware makes patches available on a monthly basis. These patches can only be applied in between major releases of vCenter Server. For example, patches released for the initial release of vCenter Server 7.0, are not applicable to vCenter Server 7.0 Update 1, as any patches previously made available will be included with the Update 1 release.

These patches can be for core product functionality, other packages in the vCenter Server such as Photon, or both.
Note: You must use only the patches provided by VMware to update the packages in your vCenter Server. Updating these packages through any other means may impact the product functionality.
VMware distributes the available patches in two forms, one for ISO-based and one for URL-based models of patching.
  • You can download the patch ISO images from https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/patch.
    VMware publishes a single type of ISO image that contains patches.
    Download Filename Description
    VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-product_version-build_number-patch-FP.iso Full product patch for the appliance, which contains the VMware software patches and the fixes related to security and third-party products (e.g. JRE and Photon OS components).
  • You can configure the vCenter Server appliance to use a repository URL as a source of available patches. The appliance is preset with a default VMware repository URL.

    You can download the patches in ZIP format from the VMware Web site at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads and build a custom repository on a local Web server. The download filename is VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-product_version-build_number-updaterepo.zip.