How to Patch vCenter Server Appliance

Patching vCenter Server Appliance looks different than upgrading. As you probably already know, an upgrade is a completely new version of the software, and a patch is a new release of the current version with the latest fixes. I have already described the vCenter Server Appliance upgrade in this article.

In this article, I will show you how to patch vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) step by step.

Prerequisites

Patch download

If your vCenter Server Appliance is connected to the Internet, you can skip this step. Then in step 5 of this guide, you can select Check CDROM + URL and download the patches directly to your Appliance.

You can download the exact patch you want to apply here.

Snapshot

Take a snapshot/backup of your current vCenter Server Appliance VM. The key is to be able to roll back in case of any issues.

I used a snapshot:

Upload Patch to the datastore

Upload downloaded ISO to the datastore using vCenter or connect directly to ESXi host using WinSCP. I used WinSCP and I uploaded ISO to shared datastore:

Patching

1. Edit settings of your vCenter Server Appliance VM.

2. In CD/DVD drive section choose Datastore ISO file. Select file window will pop-up, if not click Browse. Select uploaded ISO and click OK. Make sure Connected is checked. Click OK to finish Edit settings.