Script ‘esxupdate -query’

I received an interesting comment on my Events – Part 7 : Working with extended events – Update Manager post from Suresh. He wanted to know if it was possible to create a similar report with the vCenter Update Manager PowerCLI cmdlets as you can get with the esxupdate query command.

After some deep-diving in the VMware.VumAutomation cmdlets, I discovered that this question could probably not be answered with the VMware.VumAutomation cmdlets . On top of that, the current build seems to have a problem with Get-Baseline cmdlet when you use the -Inherit parameter.

So, as always, into the SDK 😉

Luckily, the HostPatchManager holds the answer. Via the QueryHostPatch_Task method you have access to all the installed bulletins.

Update June 25th 2010: after comments from Suresh and James I investigated what goes wrong when you run the script against an ESXi server. It turned out that the QueryHostPatch_Task method doesn’t return the bulletins for ESXi hosts.

And this seems to be consistent with the behaviour of the esxupdate query command.

I’m not sure if this is to be considered a bug or if this is intentional !

The script has been updated to display a warning when run against an ESXi server.

Update June 30th 2010: After further investigation it looks as if the problem only exist for ESXi 4 and ESXi 4u1 servers. Until further conclusive test I have adapted the script.

The script

$report = @()
Get-View -ViewType HostSystem -Filter @{"Name"="esx4i.test.local"} | %{
$esx = $_
if($esx.Config.Product.ProductLineId -ne "embeddedesx" -or ($esx.Config.Product.ProductLineId -eq "embeddedesx" -and $esx.Config.Product.Build -ge 261974)){
$patchMgr = Get-View $esx.ConfigManager.PatchManager
# 	$spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPatchManagerPatchManagerOperationSpec
# 	$spec.cmdOption = "-a"
# 	$taskMoRef = $patchMgr.QueryHostPatch_Task($spec)
$taskMoRef = $patchMgr.QueryHostPatch_Task($null)
$task = Get-View $taskMoRef
while("running","queued" -contains $task.Info.State){
sleep 2
$task.UpdateViewData("Info")
}
$result = [xml]$task.Info.Result.XmlResult
$result."esxupdate-response".bulletin | %{
$row = "" | Select ESX,"Bulletin ID",Installed,Summary
$row.ESX = $esx.Name
$row."Bulletin ID" = $_.id
$row.Installed = [datetime]$_.installDate
$row.Summary = $_.summary
$report += $row
}
}
else{
Write-Host -fo red "Host: " -NoNewline
Write-Host -fo white $esx.Name -NoNewline
Write-Host -fo red " OS: " -NoNewline
Write-Host -fo white $esx.Config.Product.FullName -NoNewline
Write-Host -fo gray " does not support the QueryHostPatch method"
}
}
$report | Sort-Object -Property ESX,Installed | ft -AutoSize

$report = @()

Get-View -ViewType HostSystem -Filter @{"Name"="esx4i.test.local"} | %{

$esx = $_

if($esx.Config.Product.ProductLineId -ne "embeddedesx" -or ($esx.Config.Product.ProductLineId -eq "embeddedesx" -and $esx.Config.Product.Build -ge 261974)){

$patchMgr = Get-View $esx.ConfigManager.PatchManager

# $spec = New-Object VMware.Vim.HostPatchManagerPatchManagerOperationSpec

# $spec.cmdOption = "-a"

# $taskMoRef = $patchMgr.QueryHostPatch_Task($spec)

$taskMoRef = $patchMgr.QueryHostPatch_Task($null)

$task = Get-View $taskMoRef

while("running","queued" -contains $task.Info.State){

sleep 2

$task.UpdateViewData("Info")

}

$result = [xml]$task.Info.Result.XmlResult

$result."esxupdate-response".bulletin | %{

$row = "" | Select ESX,"Bulletin ID",Installed,Summary

$row.ESX = $esx.Name

$row."Bulletin ID" = $_.id

$row.Installed = [datetime]$_.installDate

$row.Summary = $_.summary

$report += $row

}

else{

Write-Host -fo red "Host: " -NoNewline

Write-Host -fo white $esx.Name -NoNewline

Write-Host -fo red " OS: " -NoNewline

Write-Host -fo white $esx.Config.Product.FullName -NoNewline

Write-Host -fo gray " does not support the QueryHostPatch method"

}

$report | Sort-Object -Property ESX,Installed | ft -AutoSize

Annotations

Line 4: Check if the host runs an ESXi version.

Line 9: For our initial purpose we don’t need any of the properties in the HostPatchManagerPatchManagerOperationSpec object. Note that you could pass esxupdate options. If you add for example the option -a, the method will return all bulletins, not just the ones that are applicable. You will need to uncomment lines 6-8 and comment out line 9.

Line 15: The result is returned as an XML object.

Line 16: All returned bulletins are a node under “esxupdate-response”.bulletin. Note that we need the quotes around the first path element, otherwise the dash would pose problems.

Sample output

The script, as it is written above, dumps the results to the console. But you can just as well send the results to a CSV or XLS (see my Beyond Export-Csv: Export-Xls post) file.

Note that the script can run against all or a selection of your ESX servers in 1 run. You can use the -Filter parameter on the Get-View cmdlet or you can use a Where-Object cmdlet to select specific ESX hosts.

If one of the hosts you selected runs an ESXi version, the script will display a message on the console.

A nice addition to your daily reports for your ESX servers.

38 Comments

mr rosh

January 4, 2019 at 01:33

Any chances for a revised code that would work ESXi 6.5 and above?

Arvinth

October 16, 2014 at 13:32

Hey Luc,

though this is older thread, i have some complicated requirement. where i need to fetch the report on the esx3.5 hosts on installed security patches. the above script was not working and giving a blank output, all my hosts are 3.5.so we used plink way of extracting the report.

below is what I used.

$esxpwd = “********”
$plink = “C:\plink.exe”
$plinkoptions = ” -v -pw $esxpwd”
$remoteCommand=”‘esxupdate query | grep -i ESX350-201012410-BG; esxupdate query | grep -i ESX350-201302402-BG'”
$VC = Connect-VIServer -Server servername
$listhost = Get-VMHost
“Summary of Actions” | Out-File -FilePath .\output.txt
foreach ($esxhost in $listhost)
{
“——————————–” | Out-File -FilePath .\output.txt -Append
“Processing for the host $esxhost” | Out-File -FilePath .\output.txt -Append
$command = $plink + ” ” + “root” + “@” + $esxhost + ” ” + $plinkoptions + ” ” +$remoteCommand
$msg = Invoke-Expression -command $command
“$msg” | Out-File -FilePath .\output.txt -Append
}

this concept works if the all the hosts have same root password.

But I would request your for the script to help in the situation I have where i have different passwords for all the hosts.

Regards,
Arvinth.

Aravind

June 21, 2011 at 15:40

I am able to get the report when i run esxupdate-query from both ESX and ESXi servers but when i run the script it just shows the header.

i receive the below error when i run the script

Unexpected token ‘task’ in expression or statement.
At E:\ESXPatch\test1.ps1:15 char:19
+ $result = 1$task <<<< .Info.Result.XmlResult
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (task:String) [], ParseException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken

(After removing 1 from Line 15 script excutes fine but just shows the header and also i get the error mentioend by Suresh June 22nd, 2010 at 07:38 so i removed the installed for testing)

Aravind

June 20, 2011 at 13:06

Hi Luc,

I tried running this script but it doesnt show me the patch details, just give the header output, Tried running across ESXi4.1 update1 and ESX4.0

Script ‘esxupdate -query’

The script

Annotations

Sample output

38 Comments

mr rosh

Arvinth

Aravind

Aravind

Sathya

Sathya

Sathya

Sathya

Sathya

Sathya

Kris

Sathya

Kris

Suresh

Suresh

Suresh

Suresh

Flapoly

Suresh

Suresh

Suresh

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