It is understood that update manager, operating as a VM, cannot be used to patch a standalone host - must shut down the update manager VM and enter maintenance mode, and then update manager is no longer available.
However, update manager does a fine job of staging patches to the host machine. It seems it would be so helpful to be able to find those staged patches once the host is in maintenance mode and apply the command line esxcli ... (http://communities.vmware.com/people/vmroyale/blog/2011/09/15/updating-esxi-5--single-use-esxcli-how-to)
In this way update manager can do its job of scanning the host, downloading the correct patches, and transferring to the host machine (staging). leaving me the last remaining task of entering maintenance mode and applying the patches
Is this approach feasible?