Installing HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0

The steps to install the offline bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 has changed from VMware ESXi 4.X. The vihostupdate command used in ESXi 4.X does not work against ESXi 5.0 hosts.

1. Download the bundle.zip.

Either Google “HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0” or go to www.hp.com → Support & Drivers → Drivers & Software → Search for the server model (e.g. ProLiant BL640c) → Select the server series → Select operating system = VMware ESXi 5.0 → Find “* RECOMMENDED* HP ESXi Offline Bundle for VMware ESXi 5.0 → Download

Note: If you have problems downloading the Offline Bundle (such as getting a prompt for ftp username and password); at the time of writing, the following link taken from the HTML source code – works: http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib2/software1/pubsw-windows/p2144920481/v67792/hp-esxi5.0uX-bundle-1.1-37.zip

2. Enter your ESXi Host in maintenance mode.

For this you have to relocate or poweroff all running VM’s to other hosts.

3. Activate SSH on your ESXi Host

Press F2

Select “Troubleshooting Options”

Enable SSH

4. Copy the bundle to the Host

Use WinSCP or similar to copy the bundle.zip to the tmp directory on the ESXi 5.0 host server. Don’t copy the bundle.zip with ESXi Datastore Browser.

5. Install the bundle

Use PuTTY or similar to establish an SSH connection to the host server, and run the command:

esxcli software vib install -d /tmp/bundle.zip

6. Reboot the Host

If you compare the Hardware Status tab on the host server before and after installation of VIBs, notice the expanded and enhanced list of sensors including additional sensor categories for Storage.

Note: After all please disable SSH again.