I needed to reinstall dev ESXi 4.1. The system has LSI (AMCC, 3Ware..) 9650SE on it, and after a fresh ESXi install the array was nowhere to be found. Oh yes, the drivers are not part of the ESXi installation package (it had been a while since I did the initial install..)! A quick tour around the web quickly produced the patch command:
perl vihostupdate.pl -server x.x.x.x -username root -password “xxxxxxx” -b c:AMCC_2.26.08.035vm40-offline_bundle-179560.zip -i
I recalled I had in the past renamed the lengthy bundle file to ‘offline_bundle.zip’, and did so this time, too, to make it easier to type the command. Executing the command (with the driver bundle named as c:offline_bundle.zip), I got an error message: “No matching bulletin or VIB was found in the metadata.” Some more Googling, and I found a mention: »After shorting [sic] the name of the original file to offline-bundle.zip and re-running the command, I did get positive feedback in the form of this message: The update completed successfully.» So the name has something to do with it!
Interestingly my experience was exactly the opposite than that I found in a blog post from 2009: the driver bundle only worked with its original name (so the above command—which can also be found in the instructions—is the correct one). So not only should one read the instructions, but follow them, too! 😉