Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems (5900-3011, April 2013)
Table Of Contents
- Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems
- Contents
- 1 HP-UX patches and patch management
- 2 Quick start guide for patching HP-UX systems
- 3 HP-UX patch overview
- 4 Patch management overview
- Patch management life cycle
- HP service contracts
- Patch management and software change management strategies
- Establishing a software change management strategy
- Recommendations for software change management
- Consideration of HP patch rating
- Patch management and software depots
- Proactive patching strategy
- Reactive patching strategy
- Advanced topic: security patching strategy
- Advanced topic: scanning for security patches
- Testing the patches to be installed
- 5 What are standard HP-UX patch bundles?
- 6 Using the HP Support Center
- Obtaining an HPSC user account
- Useful pages on the HPSC
- Find individual patches
- Advanced topic: checking for special installation instructions
- Advanced topic: checking for all patch dependencies
- Standard patch bundles
- Custom patch bundles - run a patch assessment
- Support information digests
- Ask your peers in the forums
- Search knowledge base
- 7 Using software depots for patch management
- Common software distributor commands for patching
- Depot types
- Using depots
- Viewing depots
- Creating and adding to a directory depot
- Registering and unregistering directory depots
- Verifying directory depots
- Removing software from a directory depot
- Removing a directory depot
- Installing patches from a depot
- Custom patch bundles
- 8 Using HP-UX Software Assistant for patch management
- 9 Using Dynamic Root Disk for patch management
- 10 The Patch Assessment Tool
- 11 Support and other resources
- A Patch usage models
- Glossary
- Index
Standard patch bundles
The find standard patch bundles link on the patch database page provides the find bundles page
to help you acquire standard HP-UX patch bundles. See Chapter 5: “What are standard HP-UX
patch bundles?” (page 54) for more information.
Custom patch bundles - run a patch assessment
The Patch Assessment Tool allows you to create custom patch bundles specific to an environment.
This web-based tool replaced the Custom Patch Manager Tool. The Patch Assessment Tool can be
valuable for system administrators employing a proactive patch management strategy. See “The
Patch Assessment Tool” (page 91) for detailed information.
TIP: HP-UX Software Assistant (SWA) was released in January, 2007 as a software upgrade to
the Patch Assessment Tool. For more information, see Chapter 8: “Using HP-UX Software Assistant
for patch management” (page 88).
Support information digests
The HPSC provides Subscriber's Choice, the home for digest subscriptions.
Key features
Digest subscriptions allow you to do the following:
• Stay up to date with the latest support information from HP via email.
• Select your areas of interest and receive the appropriate digests from HP.
To access the Subscriber's choice page:
1. Log in to the HPSC at http://www.hp.com/go/hpsc.
2. Select Patch database.
3. On the right navigation under useful links, select subscribe to patch digests.
Ask your peers in the forums
The HPSC forums are gathering places for IT professionals. You can use the forums to solve
problems, exchange ideas, and learn from peers who also use the HPSC. HP engineers might
participate in all of these forums to share their advice; however, these forums are intended primarily
as a peer-to-peer resource.
To access patch-specific issues in the HPSC forums:
1. Log in to the HPSC at http://www.hp.com/go/hpsc.
2. Select Forums from the left navigation.
3. Select HP-UX, and then patches from the HP-UX - categories.
4. From the patches page, you can read previously posted questions and replies, and you can
post a question or reply of your own.
Search knowledge base
This functionality allows you to search across the HP knowledge base for answers to your
support-related questions and for technical support documents to solve problems. This interface
makes it easy for you to narrow your searches to documents which pertain to a particular product
area or platform by using predefined categories. Additionally, you can limit searches to particular
document types.
64 Using the HP Support Center