Virtrix has a nice article about automating the installation of ESX patches using a small perl script, leveraging IIS. (You could also use Apache.)

The process is still somewhat manual, but once you set everything up, you can quickly get multiple ESX servers updated.

Which leads me to question, why do we really need this? Why hasn’t VMware made esxupdate more “yum” like? Why can’t esxupdate check a repository, notify me of available updates, and allow me to download and install from the Service Console. Better yet, why can’t I do all this from VirtualCenter.

I’ve got a feeling that something like this is already in the works.

Technorati Tags: esxupdate, VMware, ESX, Yum