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The easiest way how to find out the ESX host version, is to log in to the service console and use the esxupdate command. The major version can be found in the file /etc/vmware-release. For example, it may contain:

VMware ESX Server 3

So, the major version is 3.x. To determine minor version is a little complicated. Run this command from service console:

esxupdate query

And try to identify patches with the following prefixes from the end of command output (the last one is the right one):

1. ESX – the minor version should be 0, so we have version 3.0.x
2. ESX350 – the minor version is 5, the version is 3.5.0
3. 3.5.0 – initial instalation of version 3.5.0

The corresponding lines may look like these:

3.5.0-64607    16:25:29 05/27/08 ESX 3.0.x to 3.5.0-64607 upgrade
3.5.0-64607    10:42:31 08/06/08 Full bundle of ESX 3.5.0-64607

It remains to identify the update level. Use the same command as above and check the full patch name now:

1. ESX350-Update01 – we have 3.5.0 Update 1
2. ESX350-Update02 – we have 3.5.0 Update 2

The corresponding lines are:

ESX350-Update01    16:59:56 05/27/08 ESX Server 3.5.0 Update 1
ESX350-Update02    10:42:38 08/06/08 ESX Server 3.5.0 Update 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another quick way to get the version of ESX, would be to run a:

# vmware -v
VMware ESX Server 3.0.1 build-32039