I spent part of the day patching my VMware servers. My suggestion: if you have more than one VMware ESX Server get a patch depot. Don’t argue with me, just do it. It requires a web server and about 28 seconds of time to read pages 5 and 6 of the VMware “Patch Management for ESX 3” guide. It beats the snot out of copying all those files around. Then you can use whole strings of:
esxupdate -noreboot -r http://web.server.you.have.com/esx/ESX-1111111 update
esxupdate -noreboot -r http://web.server.you.have.com/esx/ESX-2222222 update
esxupdate -noreboot -r http://web.server.you.have.com/esx/ESX-3333333 update
reboot
Oh, so nice. I chose to apply the patches in chronological order.
Plus, I can’t even think of a reason your patch depot couldn’t be a VM, as long as it stays up. But I just used my utility Linux box, which already had a web server.
One major chore for the week down, two to go.