I was cleaning out a few of my to-do items (list just keeps getting longer everyday) this morning and there was a question that I received a few weeks back asking how to retrieve the list of Image Profiles for a given ESXi patch. This is actually quite easy and you will want to use ESXCLI.
Note: The examples shown below is using ESXCLI on the ESXi Shell, but these commands can be execute remotely as well using ESXCLI or through PowerCLI with Get-EsxCli cmdlet.
To list the available Image Profiles for an ESXi patch, run the following command (ensure you substitute the full path to your ESXi patch):
esxcli software sources profile list -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip
To get more details on a particular Image Profile, run the following command and specify the -p for the specific Image Profile:
esxcli software sources profile get -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip -p ESXi-5.1.0-20121204001-no-tools
To install/update a specific Image Profile, run the following command with the Image Profile name:
esxcli software profile update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip -p ESXi-5.1.0-20121204001-no-tools
If you just want to install the ESXi patch, run the following command which will install the esx-base Image Profile by default which will include everything:
esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip
To check for the Image Profile you have installed on your ESXi host, run the following command:
esxcli software profile get
Here are some additional resources for ESXi patch management that may also be useful: