Red hat patching

Usage and Config Patch
1

(imported topic written by louspag91)

How does BigFix know the difference between red hat 4, red hat 4.3 and red hat 4.5 in order to apply the correct patches?

In viewing some of the fixlets the relevance extract the os version by this

exists file “/etc/redhat-release” whose (exists line whose (exists match (regex “Red Hat Enterprise Linux (AS|ES|WS) release 4”) of it) of it)

the platform by this

(exists match (regex "^i

0-9

86$") of it) of architecture of operating system

and the rpm info by this

(exists package “pcre” whose (version of it < ") of it OR exists package “pcre-devel” whose (version of it < “4.5-4.el4_6.6”) of it) of rpm

but from what little I know these can apply to any of the RHEL4, RHEL 4.3, RHEL4.5 servers. and each require specific patches.

I’m wondering if i can use a single baseline for RHEL 4, RHEL 4.3, and RHEL4.5 or do i need specific baselines for each and populate the correct patches in each? but them again how do i set relevance to distinguish the difference?

Thanks

2

(imported comment written by BenKus)

Hey Lou,

In the current version of the RedHat patching, the agent treats all major releases the same and only cares about what is missing or not missing according to the versions of the packages installed (and doesn’t care about the channel level).

We have some upcoming changes that we are releasing soon that add significant new capabilities including support for the channels, dependency checking, and more.

Ben