BigFix Patch for RHEL releases a supersedence logic enhancement

Release Announcements
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IBM BigFix Patches for RHEL now has an enhanced supersedence logic for RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 Fixlet content and packages.
The enhancement, which officially goes into effect in February 14, 2017, is part of the BigFix team’s commitment to continuous improvement. The enhancement also accommodates the transition from the Red Hat Network (RHN) hosted interface to Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM) hosted interface on July 31, 2017.
Note: The enhanced supersedence logic will not be applied to RHEL 5 and RHEL 6 on System z content. These 2 sets of content will use the existing supersedence logic.

Details:
Why is the supersedence logic being changed?
The main reason for the change is to improve Fixlet accuracy by ensuring supersedence only on Fixlets that contain superseded packages. Additionally, changes are made in line with Red Hat’s interface shift from Red Hat Network (RHN) hosted to Red Hat Subscription Management (RHSM) that is happening in July 2017.

What is being changed in the supersedence logic?
The new supersedence logic works by inspecting the packages in a Fixlet. If the Fixlet conditions match the set criteria for supersedence, only then will it be marked as superseded. Supersedence takes into effect when the packages have the same flavor, and the superseding package has a later released version.

Published sites:

  • Patches for RHEL 6 - Native Tools, version 274.
  • Patches for RHEL 7 site, version 128.

Additional reference:

Application Engineering team
IBM BigFix Patch

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Just to be clear, will a Fixlet that is part of a Baseline continue to install correctly after the source Fixlet has been superseded?

Is this only a change to the Fixlet titles, or will the relevance mark the Fixlet as Not Relevant once it has been superseded?

Once a Fixlet is superseded, can we still create custom copies and modify the relevance to continue deploying an older package?

I’m trying to determine whether the new supersedence logic is contained entirely in the Fixlet Relevance, or whether it’s bringing in dynamic data from a site file or RHSM repository that we would find more difficult to customize.

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For Fixlets in the Patches for RHEL site, they are not disabled with a False relevance when it is superseded. The Fixlet will only have title and description change.

Your Baseline may show that the Fixlets needs to be sync due to the title and description update. If you don’t really care about those changes, then effectively you can still use the custom copies or Baselines without any modification. They’d still work as before, no need to modify relevance.