Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems (762796-001, March 2014)

9 Using HP-UX Software Assistant for patch management
HP-UX Software Assistant (SWA) is a tool that consolidates and simplifies patch management and
security bulletin management on HP-UX systems. It is the HP-recommended utility for maintaining
currency with HP-published security bulletins and recommended patch levels for HP-UX 11i software.
SWA's major functions are:
• Analysis – SWA runs as a client-side patch and security analysis tool. An HP-supplied catalog
file with known problems and fixes is downloaded from the HP Support Center (HPSC) and
compared to the software installed on the system.
Systems can be analyzed for patch warnings, critical defects, security bulletins, missing Quality
Pack (QPK) patch bundles, and user-specified patches and patch families.
• Report – SWA is able to generate a variety of reports based on its analysis. Action (a to-do
list of patches to install plus manual actions), Issue (list of potential problems found), and Detail
(cross-reference between issues and actions) reports are available. These reports are
consolidated in an HTML report with links to the technical knowledge base.
• Download Software from HP – Based on the analysis, SWA obtains patches from HP and
creates a Software Distributor (SD) depot of software for installation.
IMPORTANT: Version C.02.75 of SWA is required to allow entitled customers access to the
HPSC. SWA C.02.75 supersedes all preceding versions.
You can use SWA from the HP-UX command line or from HP SIM.
To run SWA from HP SIM, use HP SIM version 5.2 or later HP-UX Central Management Server
(CMS).
SWA is supported on HP-UX 11i v3, v2, and v1 systems.
For more information
For details on using SWA, see the following references. To download the SWA product free of
charge, go to the SWA webpage at https://www.hp.com/go/swa.
• The HP-UX Software Assistant website at https://www.hp.com/go/swa provides the product
overview, download links, installation instructions, and access to documentation.
• The HP-UX Software Assistant Release Notes provides the features and functionality of the
latest release, and known problems.
• The HP-UX Software Assistant System Administration Guide describes how to use SWA.
• The Patch Usage Models in Appendix A (page 99) provide information on where SWA fits
into the overall patch process.
• The HP-UX Software Assistant manpages describe the commands and provide examples. For
HP-UX releases, the manpages are available from the command line using the man command.
◦ swa(1M)
◦ swa-report(1M)
◦ swa-get(1M)
◦ swa-step(1M)
◦ swa-clean(1M)
For more information 89