Automagically create Monthly Actions for Patching set(s) of computers

Usage and Config Patch
1

(imported topic written by arpotu91)

Hey All,

I’m looking for a way to have Bigfix automatically create an action on a monthly basis for various groups of computers. There are two pieces of work per group (~100 custom groups) which need to occur for this particular customer, the deployment days of which are derived off of Patch Tuesday + “static number of days”.

Part 1 - Pre-deploy the patches for a particular computer group

Part 2 - Reboot the group of computers

For Part 2, I believe I can write a set of custom properties, and check relevance against those properties in pre-built actions (ie, if today = patchtuesday + 3 days, then TRUE). The hard piece is Part 1. Since the “apply patches” action will change each month, due to new patches, I believe I will need to have Bigfix create an action for each of the ~100 groups.

With all of that in mind, is there any way to automate creation of actions? To me it seems like a pretty manual process, but maybe I’m missing a big piece here. If I can automate this, then the only manual part would need to be updating the baseline shortly after each patchtuesday.

Ideas?

Thanks,

Arpotu.

2

(imported comment written by BenKus)

You can certainly automate this with the BigFix Platform API… Or you can ask BigFix Professional Services to build it for you:

http://support.bigfix.com/services/

Ben

3

(imported comment written by arpotu91)

Ben,

Thanks, I’ll dig into the API to see if I can whip something up.

Arpotu.