A short memo about patching ESXi 5.0 without Update Manager:

1. Download VMWare patch, in my case I downloaded recently released Update 1 for ESXi 5.0:
   http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal
2. upload zip file to ESXi datastore
3. check that ESXi shell and SSH access is running:
   – connect to ESXi with vSphere Client, then open Configuration tab, select Security Profile, open Properties
   – check that ESXi shell and SSH are running, if not then turn them on:
   

4. shutdown all VM’s
5. use whatever ssh client you prefer to connect to ESXi host as root
6. install patch with the esxcli (change path to the patch appropriately):

   esxcli software vib install --maintenance-mode --depot /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/ISO/VMWareUpdate1/update-from-esxi5.0-5.0_update01.zip
   

   Note that everything must be on the same line!

7. reboot ESXi host

I had a severe network performance problems with base 5.0 release that installation of Update 1 fixed.