This is quite useful if you are maintaining a certain build number as the standard of your environment and if you don’t want to go beyond a predefined ESXi build number, this post is to discuss patch an ESXi host to a specific build number using VMware Update Manager. Personally, I have seen many people have the similar requirement and most of the time they find it really difficult, sometimes they patch the ESXi host to the latest build number when you want to stay in a below build number.

There can be some other workaround to do the same thing, but this is the method that I follow just to fulfill my requirement and stay safe in the specific build number. I use this VMware official patch repository to check the build numbers and it’s release dates against the Product and the respective Versions. You can access this repository here.

The important fact about this repository is it is not limited to ESXi patches and you can find some other products such as ESX, ESXi, VC, VEM, vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager in the product drop down. Also, some other filter options are available according to the Severity and Category.

In this case, just select the Product as “ESXi” and the Version as “6.0“, hit “Search” to list the number of build numbers. I want to maintain the build version as 9313334 for all my hosts, so I can find the build number and the released date of the patches.

Once I noted the patches released date, move in to the VMware Update Manager to create a new patch baseline. When you are creating the baseline select the respective filters and “On or before” as the released date.

Then attach the created patch baseline and remediate the ESXi hosts. I recommend to detach all unwanted baselines from the host.

Check the build number of the ESXi host after the remediation.