Summary: An howto on installing VMware Update Manager 5.1.
Date: Around 2012
Refactor: 1 May 2025: Checked links and formatting.

This was my howto on installing VMware Update Manager 5.1 on a vCenter 5.1 which was installed using the simple installation method. I updated this story though with an error I encountered while installing Update Manager on a Linked Mode vCenter configuration. There are a few differences. You need to add your AD (or other authentication directory) to the default domains in SSO and add your vCenter service account to the administrator role in your vCenter permissions. I created a special chapter for that at the end of the article.

This is a follow up on vCenter 5.1 Installation so two Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise servers, one of them with MS SQL 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise. This also means that the Native SQL Client from Microsoft is already installed, you need this software to set up the DSN.

In this documentation you can read what permissions and roles you need on the database:

Microsoft SQL Server Make sure that the database user has either a sysadmin server role or the db_owner fixed database role on the vCenter Update Manager database and the MSDB database. Although the db_owner role is required for the upgrade, SQL jobs are not created as part of the vCenter Update Manager installation or upgrade. The db_owner role on the MSDB database is required for installation and upgrade only.

Also, here you'll read that Update Manager does not support Windows authentication of the database when the database is located on a different machine because of local system account issues. Make sure that if the Update Manager database is located on a remote machine, the database and the system DSN use SQL Server authentication.
So since this is the case in this setup we'll have to do that:

USE [master]
GO
CREATE DATABASE [UMDB] ON PRIMARY
(NAME = N'UMDB', FILENAME = N'D:\MSSQL\DATA\UMDB.mdf' )
LOG ON
(NAME = N'UMDB_log', FILENAME = N'D:\MSSQL\DATA\UMDB.ldf' )
COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
GO
USE UMDB
GO
sp_addlogin @loginame=[UM_DBA], @passwd=N'XXXXXXXXX', @defdb='UMDB',
@deflanguage='us_english'
GO
ALTER LOGIN [UM_DBA] WITH CHECK_POLICY = OFF
GO
CREATE USER [UM_DBA] FOR LOGIN [UM_DBA]
GO
sp_addrolemember @rolename = 'db_owner', @membername = 'UM_DBA'
GO
USE MSDB
GO
CREATE USER [UM_DBA] FOR LOGIN [UM_DBA]
GO
sp_addrolemember @rolename = 'db_owner', @membername = 'UM_DBA'
GO

To make a connection to the database you'll need a 32 bits DSN. This is, even though Update Manager requires a 64 bits OS, the program itself is 32 bits and thus needs a 32 bits DSN.
To set up a 32bit DSN, launch the 32bit version of the Data Source Administrator. It is located at:

• For Windows 2008: %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe
• For Windows 2003: %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\Odbcad32.exe

Note that if this file does not exist, or if you don't see the SQL Native Client 10.0 driver in the DSN creation wizard you probably haven't installed the SQL Native client. See vCenter 5.1 Installation for more information.

Go to %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64\ and doubleclick the Odbcad32.exe executable. Go to the System DSN tab and click add:

Select the SQL Server Native Client 10.0 driver, then name the connection and configure the database server you want to use:

Make sure you select the SQL authentication method:

And set the correct database:

Now finish the wizard, keeping all settings default, and perform the Test Data Source check at the end to make sure everything is configured correctly.

Start the installation and select “VMware vSphere Update Manager” option. Click through the installation wizard, accepting language, license agreements etc. Note that I deselect to download updates immediately after installation:

Set up the vCenter configuration and authentication:

Then select the existing database and the correct DSN:

Configure the database authentication:

Keep the ports default and make sure the FQDN is selected for network identification:

Keep the default for the installation directory, but change the directory for downloading patches to a directory with enough space:

Now finish the installation wizard and wait for it to complete.

To manage Update Manager you must first install the plugin into your vSphere Client. Open the client and go to Plug-Ins and select Manage Plug-ins:

Click the download and install link at the available plug-ins section:

Run the installation wizard and keep all settings default. When the installation is finished a new tab will be available in your vSphere Client:

Configuring updates is a matter of setting the proxy:

You could set download schedules if you don't want to constraint your internet connection.

Read here the documentation on how to import images and more information.
If you have IBM servers, consider downloading a custom image from the IBM website(IBM ID required), this has special drivers and firmware included in the image.
With Update Manager you can update or upgrade hosts to ESXi 5.1 To do so you need to import an iso image into update manager. I will be using a customized image from IBM:

• ESXi-5.1.0-799733-IBM-20120919.iso

To import the image go into the Update Manager tab in your vSphere Client and go into the Admin View:

In the Update Manager administration view go to the ESXi Images tab and click “Import ESXi Image”. A wizard will appear which will allow you to browse for an image:

The second step of the wizard will upload the image to Update Manager. The third step will allow you to Create a New Baseline using the image:

Click finish to close the wizard.

Note that in Update Manager you can see the content of the image, and in the directory which you selected for Update Manager patches a new folder appears:

Go to the datacenter where the hosts resides in (Cluster and hosts view). Go to the Update Manager tab and click Attach. You will now see a list of available baselines allowing you to select the one you just created:

After attaching the baseline Update Manager will check the hosts in the datacenter for compliancy. You can perform a scan to check if the host is compatible with the upgrade.

Note: Before you update a host make sure all VMs are powered off or moved to other hosts.

If you see a host that is incompatible you can read below on how you can check what is wrong. Also note the following message from the release notes:

• Async drivers, for example oem-vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-9xxx.
  • The vendor will release drivers asynchronously for ESXi 5.0, and the drivers will be made available in the VMware patch depot. If you require those drivers, you must download them, use Image Builder CLI to build a custom ESXi image that contains them, and remediate against the custom image. Without the ESXi 5.0 drivers, pertinent hardware devices might stop functioning.
• Deprecated drivers, for example oem-vmware-esx-drivers-net-vxge.
  • The driver is discontinued in ESXi 5.0 because the pertinent hardware is discontinued. In the Update Manager Remediate wizard, on the ESXi 5.x Upgrade page, click Remove installed third-party software that is incompatible with the upgrade, and continue with the remediation. You should be aware of the functional implications of third-party software removal, because pertinent hardware devices might stop functioning.

Start remediation:

Remove installed third-party software that is incompatible with the upgrade, and continue with the remediation:

Give the task a descriptive name:

Leave all settings default, our VMs are already turned off:

Finish the wizard and the remediation will start.

Note: The process will be at 22% most of the time. Hosts in a cluster will be at 27% most of the time. According to the manual the upgrade process should take about 15 minutes, but when upgrading from ESX, will all the reboots and extra steps, I find the process to take up to 1 hour to complete.

When the installation is finished, perform a new scan and the host status will change to compliant.

If you go into the administration view of Update Manager and check the Baselines and Groups tab for VM baselines you'll see a few predefined baselines for VMs:

The two baselines I marked are to upgrade the VMware Tools to match the host level and the hardware level to match the host level. This means you can attach these baselines to the datacenter and use them to update the VMs. To be able to use Update Manager for VMs, first go into your “VMs and Templates” view in your vSphere client, and go to Update Manager tab at the datacenter level, and click attach to select the correct baselines:

Then perform a scan to check the current status of your VMs:

To start upgrading just click the remediate button at the right bottom corner to start the remediation wizard. Here you can select the VMs you want to upgrade:

Then give a descriptive name and set the schedule:

Decide whether you want to take a snapshot before the upgrade:

Finish the wizard and the upgrades will start.
When the tools upgrade is done, you can start the hardware level upgrade at the same way, just select the appropriate baseline in the first window of the remediation wizard:

After updating you can check the VMware Tools status and hardware version:

If an object shows incompatible, it is possible to check what the cause is. Just click on the incompatible object:

And at the Update Manager tab of the object you'll see a link with more explanation:

When installing VMware Update Manager in a linked mode vCenter environment you'll need a few more configuration changes before the installation can start. You need to do two things:

• Add your AD (or other authentication directory) to the default domains in SSO
• Add your vCenter service account to the administrator role in your vCenter permissions

Log on to SSO, and go to Administration → Sign-On and Discovery → Configuration and select your AD domain. Then click the symbol to add it to your default domains:

You'll receive a warning, read and continue:

Now the domain will be added to the default domain. Now use the arrow buttons to move the AD domain to the top of the list. SSO will try to authenticate an account first at the domain at the top of the list, continuing down until a successful authentication finds place. Moving the domain to the list actually speeds up the logging in process:

Now logon to vCenter using the vSphere client and ad the service account of vCenter to the administrator role at the permissions tab:

If you do try to installing VMware Update Manager without these steps you'll receive this error:

Setup failed with an unknown error. vCenter credentials could not be validated.

And in the %TEMP%\vminst.log you'll see this error:

VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 ---------- Begin Logging ----------
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 --- CA exec: VMValidateVCServerInfo
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 Getting Property VC_SERVER_IP = vcenter.shift.local
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 Getting Property VC_SERVER_PORT = 80
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 Getting Property VC_SERVER_ADMIN_USER = SHIFT\SRV-vcenter
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 Getting Property TEMP_DIR = C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 AppendPath::done Path: C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\vum
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 VC validation command: ["-v vcenter.shift.local -p 80 -U "SHIFT\SRV-vcenter" -P *********** -C 'C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\vum\' -L 'C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\\' -O vcversion"]
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 AppendPath::done Path: C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\vum\vciInstallUtils.exe
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:58:46 Found "C:\Users\sjoerd\AppData\Local\Temp\vum\vciInstallUtils.exe"
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:59:57 Process returned 199
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:59:57 Error:: Unknown VC error
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:59:57 Getting Property UILevel = 5
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 20:59:57 Getting Property ProductName = VMware vSphere Update Manager

VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 21:10:38 Setting property VCServerInfoOK =

VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 21:10:38 Setting property VC_SERVER_IP_LOCAL =
VMware Update Manager-build-782803: 02/05/13 21:10:38 ---------- End Logging----------