In my previous post, I showed you how to run scripts on the ESXi CLI with minimal intervention. In this episode, I will show you another example, which will also make use of PowerCLI and one of the PuTTY utilities.
The scenario; Now and then servers need all kind of upgrades; BIOS, NIC and HBA firmware to name a few. Hardware vendors usually offer multiple ways and additional tooling to perform those updates. As an example HPE provides packages, called Smart Components which can be installed from the Operating System layer, in the past limited to Windows and some Linux flavours, today also for ESXi.
Smart Components for ESXi come in the form of a .zip file, named CPxxxxxx.zip . The .zip contains an executable called: CPxxxxxx.vmexe, the firmware CPxxxxxx.vmfile, some additional .xml and .json files and a README.txt with installation instructions. Chances are that during an upgrade cycle of a cluster multiple components need a firmware upgrade, it will become clear that this is a time consuming task. So time for some automation!
Adventures in a Virtual World 