Central patch management

Provide visibility and control over patch installation, status, and history.

About this task

The central manager provides the interface to install patches on all managed units in your environment and also view the patch installation status and history for each unit.

When you install a patch, a date and time request can be specified to indicate when the patch is installed. If no date and time is entered or if now is entered, the installation request time is immediate.

Note: A patch that is installed successfully can be installed again. This fact is important for batched patches. A warning informs you if the patch is already installed.

Procedure

Click Manage > Central Management > Central Management and then select the units that need the patch, and click Patch Distribution. This opens the Patch Distribution page:

From the Patch Distribution screen select the patch you want to distribute and click Install Patch Now or Schedule Patch.
To see the summary of the installation status, click Manage > Central Management > Central Management and then select the units and click Patch Installation Status. The Patch Installation Status screen also displays, for each unit, failed installations and discrepancies. For example, having one patch installed on part of the units only, regardless if it failed on other units or was not installed. To remove patches from the Patch Distribution screen, click the delete icon (red x) next to the patch. This does not delete the patch from the patch distribution directory on the appliance, but will remove it from the display.

Attention: Removing a patch from the patch distribution display also removes that patch from dependency-checking and can prevent the installation of newer patches.