Installing ESXi and update via USB stick

If you have a standalone esxi 5 server and you want to upgrade it, you can use an usb stick to update the server. Notice that the USB key or disk device media is formatted with a FAT16 partition and has a maximum size of 2GB.

First of all you need the following article

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1036340

Basically because you can now assign usb devices to VMs, you need to stop the service that does so

/etc/init.d/usbarbitrator stop

You will then be able to find the usb under /vmfs/volumes after you reconnect it. You don't need to restart the service as you will reboot after the updates

Now put your ESXi in maintenance mode 

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

Then to apply patches, use the following command

esxcli software vib install -d /vmfs/volumes/[USB]/[PATCH_FILE].zip

For more information go to http://www.chriscolotti.us/vmware/vsphere/how-to-patch-vsphere-5-esxi-without-update-manager/

Reboot when done and you should be setup!