Adding emergency fixes to the catalog

Use emergency fixes to update the product binary files of deployed instances.

Before you begin

Emergency fixes can be individual fixes or a group of fixes that are associated with particular virtual system or virtual application types. Emergency fixes are provided by IBM® or an image provider and must be downloaded before you can add them to the catalog. Download fixes from IBM Fix Central. It is also possible to create and package your own fix to apply custom maintenance to your classic virtual system instances. For more information, see Packaging emergency fixes.

You must be assigned the Create new catalog content role or the Workload resources administration role with Full permissions to complete this task.

About this task

Emergency fixes provide updates to your virtual systems, virtual applications, databases, and shared services. Upload the fixes to the catalog and then apply them to your environment. Any emergency fix that you upload must contain an XML file that provides important information about the fix and how it is to be applied.

Procedure

  1. Click Catalog > Emergency Fixes.
  2. Click the New icon in the toolbar.
  3. Enter the emergency fix name in the Name field.
    This field is used as the identifier for the new emergency fix you are adding to the catalog.

    Ensure that you use a meaningful name for the emergency fix so that the type of fix and the software that it applies to are easily identifiable.

  4. Optional: In the Description field, enter the description for the fix that is being added.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Click Browse and select a file to upload. Click OK.
    For security reasons, only .zip, .tgz, and .pak files can be uploaded.
  7. Click Upload to import the file.
  8. Optional: Click Add more in the Access granted to field and select a user name to grant more users access to the emergency fix.
    You are automatically assigned access to an emergency fix when you create it. If you want to allow more users to apply this fix to various instances, you must grant the users access.
  9. Select a severity level for your fix.
    This field is informational and identifies the urgency for applying this emergency fix.
  10. Optional: The emergency fix creator sets the plug-ins and images to which the emergency fix applies in service.xml. If these values are set in service.xml, they are automatically populated when you upload the emergency fix file. If you want to apply the emergency fix to images or plug-ins that were not set by the emergency fix creator, select more virtual images or plug-ins for which this emergency fix is applicable. The Applicable to field determines to which virtual images or plug-ins this emergency fix applies. This fix is only available for the instances that you created by using the virtual images that are listed in this field. If the plug-ins are selected, the fix is only available to the selected plug-ins.
    Attention: To view the virtual images that are listed in the Applicable to field, you must have read access to the images in addition to having the Create new catalog content user permission.

    You might find that the applicable software list for an uploaded emergency fix is incomplete. When you add an emergency fix to the catalog, any virtual images or plug-ins that are defined as prerequisites are automatically selected as applicable software for the emergency fix in the Applicable to list. When multiple prerequisites are defined in the package that you upload, it can take some time for the Applicable to list to update. Click Refresh in your browser to refresh and view the most current list.

    Note: When you create a virtual application pattern in the Pattern Builder, a WebSphere Application Server interim fix is available to include in the virtual application if the following conditions are met:
    • The virtual application pattern is based on a pattern type that is associated with one of the plug-ins you selected in the Applicable to field.
    • The plug-in is enabled.

    Other types of fixes are applied by using the maintenance fix feature in the Instance Console.

  11. Optional: Click Lock in the toolbar to configure the fix as read-only and lock it to prevent further editing.
    Warning: This operation cannot be undone.

What to do next

Apply the emergency fixes to your environment.