If you have a vCenter Update Manager server and it does not have Internet access (for whatever reason: Safety Issues…) to download the security patches of our vSphere environment we can use an intermediary server that downloads the updates and then passes them to the vCenter Update Manager server, in this document we will look at the installation and configuration of VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Services (UMDS).

We must take into account that Update Manager Download Service is a version compatible with our Update Manager; To install it we must execute 'VMware-UMDS.exe’ which we will find inside the 'umds folder'’ of the vSphere DVD 5. Select the installation language,

“Next” to begin the vCenter Update Manager Download Services installation wizard (UMDS),

“Next”,

“I accept the terms in the license agreement” & “Next”,

We will need a DB for UMDS, we can install SQL Express locally or already use an existing database server on our network (for this, prior to installation we must generate a DSN of 32 bits with '%windir%SysWOW64odbcad32.exe'),

If this server needs a proxy to browse we will configure it for you,

Installation paths, default '%ProgramFiles'(x86)%VMwareInfrastructure’ and select another directory to store the patches. “Next” to begin installation,

… wait a few seconds while installing…

“Finish”, at the moment we have Update Manager Download Service installed but in the absence of configuration,

From command line in '%ProgramFiles(x86)%VMwareInfrastructureUpdate Manager’ with 'vmware-umds.exe -h’ We'll get the help of the configuration tool, where we will obtain all the possible parameters. Before we get started, we'll look at the current UMDS setup with 'vmware-umds.exe-G’ that we must customize according to our interest (Get-config). With 'vmware-umds -S’ We will specify a configuration (Set-config) To apply.

With 'vmware-umds.exe –list-host-platform’ we'll look at the platforms for which you can download UMDS patches, we must select which ones we are interested in downloading, for this, we will disable all of them first with 'vmware-umds.exe -S –disable-host'; and now we will enable only the platforms that we are interested in patching, in my case all ESXs(i) 4.1 so we enable it with 'vmware-umds.exe -S -e esx-4.1.0 embeddedEsx-4.1.0'.

Once VMware vSphere Update Manager Download Services is correctly configured, we download the patches from the internet with 'vmware-umds.exe -D’ to the download directory.

We wait while it goes down… then we must indicate the exchange directory where vCenter Update Manager will take the patches, for this we will export them to a directory with 'vmware-umds.exe -S –default-export-store PATH’ we will indicate where and to make this copy immediately we will execute 'vmware-umds.exe -E'.

If we are not interested in downloading the patches for the virtual appliances, we can also download it (Of course, before we get our paces down!) with 'vmware-umds.exe -S –disable-va'. And finally we confirm that our configuration is now correct by running 'vmware-umds.exe -G again’ Getting the current configuration, with this UMDS we will have it ready!

And finally, all that remains is to tell vSphere Update Manager not to download the internet patches itself, but that uses a shared repository. The most common will be the transfer via HTTP/HTTPS between UMDS and UM, so on the UMDS server we will enable a web server. From the VMware vSphere client, in the 'Update Manager' view, 'Configuration' tab, in the 'Download Settings' options’ check 'Use a shared repository', we will validate the URL & We'll apply the changes.

If we are interested, we can create a script/scheduled task on the UMDS server that periodically downloads the patches from the Internet in the UMDS and exports them with the configuration that we already have applied with a simple batch, that executes:

vmware-umds -D

vmware-umds -E