Managing Hosts

You can use host management commands to stop, reboot ESXi hosts, enter and exit maintenance mode, and manage modules. You can also manage components, base images, add-ons, and host updates.

vSphere 7.0 introduces components, base images, and add-ons. A component is an installation packaging element. One component might contain multiple VIBs. The component has a version number that is separate from the version numbers of any VIBs it contains, though it might be the same. Each VIB in a component can contain a device driver, a CIM module, or an application for communicating between the two. Components simplify the packaging and installation of installable items on ESXi. The base image is an ESXi image that VMware provides with every release of ESXi. The base image is a collection of components that is complete and can boot up a server. Base images have a user-readable name and a unique version that is updated with every major or minor release of ESXi. The add-on is a collection of components that does not represent a complete, bootable image. You cannot use vendor add-ons on their own. To customize an ESXi release, you must add a vendor add-on to an ESXi base image.

For information on updating ESXi hosts with the esxcli software command and on changing the host acceptance level to match the level of a VIB that you might want to use for an update, see the VMware ESXi Upgrade document.