So I have an automation plan that includes the Run Baseline from Site step.
I’ve tested this in a test plan, copy of sample plan etc.
I’ve tested using a specific system as a target and a group as a target and targets from previous step.
I have a unique Site created for this one baseline so when I point the baseline step to it, there is only the one baseline to reference.
That site is set to “all computers” and shows relevant to the systems I’ve been doing testing with.
The baseline works just fine when run on its own.
When run as part of the automation plan, BF thinks the baseline step ran but it never actually does anything.
It quite literally starts and stops the step in about 1 sec or less. Like its not even trying to do anything - no evaluating etc.
On my most recent tests, I’ve removed/uninstalled updates so I would know there was something for the baseline to do. I double checked the components in the baseline and sure enough, at least one of the patches is there but the plan continues to not do anything with this step.
I had issues with running baselines from a site also. I believe it was fixlet 137 “Dynamically run baselines from a site”.
Opened a PMR and the workaround was to assign the baseline directly in the SA action. ie Add Step -> Include “Baseline” -> Name of baseline. That works much better, but you have to recycle the baseline each patch cycle instead of delete/recreate. I did have to rewrite most of my SA jobs to use that step also.
Thank you for that. I’ll give it a shot.
But you mentioned something I was told I couldnt do - “recycle the baseline”.
Can you breakdown what you mean by this?
I was told I’d have to delete/recreate each month…
So every month now we take the baselines and remove all patches. Then we find the new relevant patches and “Add to existing baseline”. The trick to not breaking the SA job is to not create a new baseline each month, just clean and repopulate the old one, and don’t change the baseline name.
ie we used to create 1 baseline each month for each SA job. for example: WIN-Ecom July 2020
Now we use: WIN-Ecom Baseline and just reuse it
Welcome, I’m sure I could’ve explained it better.
I do wish that HCL would put some effort into updating SA because it has real potential to help in scheduling multiple action steps. It’s also the only way we have found the be able to schedule pre-caching
It seems no matter where I put this new step, the plan is running this step first.
Not sure whats happening here or why its out of order…or why it appears twice like this.
Edit - it seems the first step of MS Updates for Automation ran very quickly so not sure what its doing, but the second time it appears, in order, its taking awhile as if its running correctly.
Its just confusing to see it pop up as the first step for no apparent reason so any insight would be helpful
Did you happen to upgrade to the newest SA planengine lately? I think it is 9.5.55 now. That is when my issues started. We have rolled back to 9.5.52 even though I am on V10 for the rest of Bigfix.
Going to defer to the experts on the action order issue. Might want to open a PMR
Last SA upgrade I saw a couple of days ago was to .56 which I did.
It seems to be working OK, but the order is odd IMO.
Last test got stuck at pending restart so I added the post action option to restart in the baseline to see if that fixes that.
This Server Automation 9.5.56 update resolves the issue that you experienced.
Content in the Server Automation site has been modified.
Reasons for Update:
New! IBM GSKit cryptographic libraries replaced with the OpenSSL 1.0.2u FIPS compliant
Defect article: KB0079739: Fixlets : 137 - Baseline SiteURL not found
Security Enhancements
Published site version:
Server Automation, version 75
Published component versions:
Server Automation Plan Engine module, version 9.5.56
Server Automation REST API Node module, version 9.5.56
Actions to Take:
Gathering of the site and installation of the new Plan Engine and Server Automation REST API Node modules will get the updates installed.
