The vSphere Lifecycle Manager synchronizes to its download source regularly and automatically. But you can change the contents of the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot by manually importing or deleting updates or ISO images or by triggering synchronization at a convenient time.

Import Updates to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

You can use an offline bundle in ZIP format and import updates to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot manually. When you import offline bundles, you add both the update metadata and actual payload to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot.

You use the import option to populate the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot with updates from an offline bundle. Apart from the legacy patches and extensions, an offline bundle can also contain an ESXi base image, a vendor add-on, or third-party software, for example, asynchronous drivers specific to the OEM hardware requirements. For more information about base images, vendor add-ons, and components, see Software Packaging Units That vSphere Lifecycle Manager Can Consume.

If you want to use vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines, you can import offline bundles that contain patches and extensions for hosts that run ESXi 6.7 and later. In that case, you can use the contents of the offline bundle only for host patching operations. If you import an OEM offline bundle that contains an ESXi image of a version earlier than 7.0, you cannot use the image for upgrade operations. To create upgrade baselines, you need an ISO image. For more information, see Import an ISO Image to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot.

If you want to use vSphere Lifecycle Manager images, you can import offline bundles that contain software for hosts that run ESXi 7.0 and later. In that case, you can use the contents of the offline bundle to set up vSphere Lifecycle Manager images, which you can use to upgrade a standalone host or multiple ESXi hosts collectively.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the updates that you import are in ZIP format.
  • Required privileges: VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager.Upload File.Upload File.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. Select Actions > Import Updates at the top of the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    The Import Updates dialog box opens.
  3. Enter a URL or browse to an offline bundle in ZIP format on your local machine.
    If the upload fails, check whether the structure of the ZIP file is correct and whether the vSphere Lifecycle Manager network settings are set up correctly.
  4. Click Import.
    The Import updates task appears in the Recent Tasks pane.

Results

You imported updates to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot. vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatically generates new image recommendations for the clusters or hosts that already have generated recommended images. However, if the imported updates are solution components only, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not generate new recommendations automatically.

You can view the imported patches and extension on the Updates tab in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.

You can view the imported ESXi images, vendor add-ons, and additional components on the Image Depot tab in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.

Import an ISO Image to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

You import ESXi images in ISO format to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager local depot, so that you can create upgrade baselines, which you use for host upgrade operations.

You can use ESXi .iso images to upgrade ESXi 6.7.x hosts and ESXi 7.0.x hosts to ESXi 8.0.

With vSphere Lifecycle Manager 8.0, you cannot perform ESXi upgrades to version 7.0 or 6.7.

ISO images can only be used with vSphere Lifecycle Manager baselines. You cannot use an ISO image to upgrade the hosts in a cluster that uses a single image.

To upgrade hosts, use the ESXi installer image distributed by VMware with the name format VMware-VMvisor-Installer-7.0.0-build_number.x86_64.iso or a custom image created by using vSphere ESXi Image Builder. You can also use ISO images created and distributed by OEMs.

Prerequisites

Required privileges: VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager.Upload File

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. On the Imported ISOs tab, click Import ISO
  3. In the Import ISO dialog box, select an image.
    • Click the Browse button to import an ESXi image from your local system.
    • Enter an URL address to import an ESXi image that is not on your local system.
    Local images are imported immediately, whereas importing images from a URL takes some time.
  4. Click Import.

Results

The ISO image that you uploaded appears in the list of images. You can view information about the ESXi image, such as product, version, and build details, vendor, acceptance level, and creation date.

What to do next

Create a host upgrade baseline.

Delete an ISO Image from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

If you do not need an ESXi image, you can delete it from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot.

Unlike components and bulletins, which you cannot delete from the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot, the ISO images that you import in the depot can be deleted when you no longer need them .

Prerequisites

  • Verify that the ISO image that you want to delete is not part of any baseline. You cannot delete images that are included in a baseline.
  • Delete any baseline that contains the ISO image that you want to delete.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. On the Imported ISOs tab, select an image from the list and click Delete.
    Note: If you try to delete an ESXi image that is used in a baseline, the operation fails with an error message.
  3. Click Yes to confirm the deletion.

Results

The ISO image is deleted and no longer available.

Synchronize the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Depot

Instead of waiting for the predefined download task to run as scheduled, you can update your local vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot immediately.

At regular configurable intervals, vSphere Lifecycle Manager downloads updates from the configured download sources. The download sources can be online depots or a UMDS-created shared repository.

Regardless of the download schedule, you can initiate synchronization between the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot and the configured download sources. Similar to scheduled synchronization, when you initiate synchronization manually, vSphere Lifecycle Manager downloads software from all online depots that you configured it to use. For more information about configuring the vSphere Lifecycle Manager download sources, see Configuring the vSphere Lifecycle Manager Download Sources.

During synchronization, vSphere Lifecycle Manager downloads only the update metadata, the actual payloads are downloaded during staging or remediation.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    1. In the vSphere Client, select Menu > Lifecycle Manager.
    2. Select a vCenter Server system from the Lifecycle Manager drop-down menu.
      The drop-down menu is available only when multiple vCenter Server systems are connected by a common vCenter Single Sign-On domain. By selecting a vCenter Server system, you specify which vSphere Lifecycle Manager instance you want to administer.
  2. Select Actions > Sync Updates at the top of the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.
    The Sync updates task appears in the Recent Tasks pane.

Results

You downloaded updates to the vSphere Lifecycle Manager depot. vSphere Lifecycle Manager automatically generates new image recommendations for the clusters that already have generated recommended images. However, if the updates are related to downloading solution components only, vSphere Lifecycle Manager does not generate new recommendations automatically.

You can view the downloaded patches and extension on the Updates tab in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.

You can view the downloaded ESXi images, vendor add-ons, and components on the Image Depot tab in the vSphere Lifecycle Manager home view.