Installation guide

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You must manage your own patch repository. A temporary expansion of the patches occurs in the
/tmp directory. For single-user mode, patches are extracted to /var/tmp. If you do not use the
machine group mapping to define an alternate location for the patches, VCM uses the default location
of /tmp.
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Store the Linux and UNIX patches in a location that is available locally to the VCM managed machine,
such as an NFS mount or a local hard drive. If you store the patches on an NFS mount, you must define
the path in machine group mapping in Administration > Settings > General Settings > Patching >
Machine Group Mapping. You can use VCM remote commands or another available method to place
the patches on the VCM managed machines.
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When you define an alternate location patch repository for a particular machine group, you must select
that machine group in VCM before you deploy the patches. If you do not select the machine group,
VCM does not acknowledge the alternate location patch repository and does not deploy the patches.
The alternate patch location repository appears in the Machine Group Mapping data grid in
Administration > Settings > General Settings > Patching > Machine Group Mapping.
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To have VCM deploy patches to groups of managed machines, you must set the machine group
mapping to the source location for the patches on the patching repository machine or alternate location
machine. Setting the machine group mapping is important when you patch managed machines in
single-user mode, because /tmp is not always available. Machine group mappings are not inherited,
which means that if you create a machine group under another machine group, the mapping remains
separate for each machine group. For example, if you create a machine group called Solaris under the
All UNIXMachines machine group, the machine group mapping for All UNIX Machines does not apply
to the Solaris machine group.
Location for Linux and UNIXPatches
For automatic patching with VCM 5.7: If you defined a patching repository and a patch staging option,
you can submit the job. The optional patch synchronization, staging, and deployment actions occur as
scheduled, and the patch download occurs immediately.
For manual patching:When you patch Linux and UNIX machines, you copy the patches to a shared
location, then indicate the type of patch deployment and the source location for the patches in the VCM
machine group mapping.
Default Location for Linux and UNIX Patches
For automatic patching with VCM 5.7: When you use the VCM 5.7 patch download and optional patch
synchronization, staging, and deployment, VCMuses the default locations. If you define other defaults, or
if you specify the location in the VCM machine group mapping, VCM stages the patches to that location.
For manual patching: If you do not use the VCM machine group mapping to define an alternate location
for the patches, VCM uses the default location of /tmp. A temporary expansion of the patches occurs in
the /var/tmp directory, which contains the extracted patches and working files that VCM uses for patch
deployment. This custom patch location must have adequate space to accommodate these files, and must
be available in single-user mode for VCM to patch Solaris managed machines single-user mode.
VCM retains the Linux and UNIX patching change actions in the change log. These actions are available in
VCM Compliance and VCM Reports. You can view the patch assessment changes by data type in the
Change Management node of the VCM Console. VCM Change Management reports changes on the
Patch Assessment and Patch Deployment data types.
IMPORTANT If a failure occurs at any time during the patch deployment job, the System Administrator
must check the status of the system, resolve any issues, then reassess the managed machines. In a job
chain, a failure in any step of the job breaks the job chain, which causes all subsequent job steps to not run.
Patching Managed Machines
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