Most VMware appliances (vCenter Appliance, VMware Support Appliance, vRealize Orchestrator) have the so called VAMI: the VMware Appliance Management Interface, generally served via https on port 5480. VAMI offers a variety of functions, including "check updates" and "install updates". Some appliances offer to check/install updates from a connected CD iso, but the default is always to check online. How does that work? VMware uses a dedicated website to serve the updates: vapp-updates.vmware.com. Each appliance is configured with a repository URL: https://vapp-updates.vmware.com/vai-catalog/valm/vmw/PRODUCT-ID/VERSION-ID . The PRODUCT-ID is a hexadecimal code specific for the product. vRealize Orchestrator uses 00642c69-abe2-4b0c-a9e3-77a6e54bffd9, VMware Support Appliance uses 92f44311-2508-49c0-b41d-e5383282b153, vCenter Server Appliance uses 647ee3fc-e6c6-4b06-9dc2-f295d12d135c. The VERSION-ID contains the current appliance version and appends ".latest":...
plenty of grains to pick