Installation guide

VCM Patching Actions
The following actions are available.
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Agent Install: VCM Patching installs the Agent component to a machine the first time a patch is
deployed to that machine.
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Agents using HTTP: If VCM Patching detects that the target machine has an VCM Agent using HTTP,
VCM Patching will route the deployment through VCM as a remote command job.
Prerequisites
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Test all patches before you deploy them.
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Back up critical systems. Before you deploy selected patches, you must understand their potential
impact and create backups of critical systems.
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Set Administrator privileges. If users who do not have Administrator privileges use VCM Patching to
deploy patches, you must modify the File-level permissions of the \\collector_
name\cmfiles$\SUM Downloads share. This default share is shared to Everyone with full control, but
the file permissions are more limited and the Everyone group only has read permission on the
directory. Make sure that the user, or a group to which the user belongs, has write permission in the
download directory.
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Set the timing for multiple patch jobs. When one or more patches are deployed, a job is created for each
machine. Click Patching and select Job Management > Windows or UNIX > Job Manager >
Scheduled. If a reboot is required, two jobs are created for each machine, each with the same start time.
If you have many machines, or if you selected to download the patches at run time, jobs might exceed
the defined window before they time out. If jobs time out, you take the following actions.
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Increase the setting named "How long before a request will be considered stale (minutes)". Click
Administration and select Settings > General Settings > Collector.
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Increase the setting named "Maximum Concurrent Agent Installs". Click Administration, select
Settings > General Settings > Patching > Windows > Deployment, and edit the Collector Option.
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Reschedule jobs in Job Manager. Click Patching and select Job Management > Windows or UNIX >
Job Manager > Scheduled.
Acquire the UNIX Patches
After you review the assessment results and determine which patches to deploy, use FTP, HTTP, or
another available method to acquire the UNIX patches from the appropriate vendor.
Store the UNIX Patches
Store the 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. Click Administration and select 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.
Patch Repository Management
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 Machine Group
Mapping to define an alternate location for the patches, the default location of /tmp is used.
vCenter Configuration Manager Administration Guide
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