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BigFix Patch provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console.
Patch for SUSE Linux Enterprise User's Guide
BigFix Patch for SUSE Linux Enterprise provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all SUSE Linux endpoints.
Custom repositories management
You can set up your custom repositories and Subscription Management Tool (SMT) to manage patches for SUSE Linux Enterprise version 11 and later. This solution allows for multiple repositories and SMTs on the entire deployment.
SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard
Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to easily integrate your existing custom repository or Subscription Management Tool (SMT) solutions with the BigFix patch management solution. Only endpoints on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Linux Enterprise Server versions 11, 12, and 15 are supported in this dashboard.

Patch User Guides
BigFix Patch provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console.
- Patch for Windows User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Windows™ provides Fixlets for Microsoft™ security and non-security patches. Dashboards, wizards, and reports aid you in managing updates for various endpoint devices.
- Patch for AIX User's Guide
  BigFix® for Patch for AIX® provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility, and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all AIX endpoints.
- Patch for Red Hat Enterprise Linux User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility, and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Red Hat Enterprise Linux endpoints.
- Patch for CentOS Linux User's Guide
  BigFix® Patch for CentOS Linux™ provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all CentOs endpoints.
- Patch for Amazon Linux User's Guide
  BigFix® Patch for Amazon Linux™ provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Amazon Linux endpoints.
- Patch for SUSE Linux Enterprise User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for SUSE Linux Enterprise provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all SUSE Linux endpoints.
  - Overview
    The BigFix Patch solution, which includes deploying a multi-purpose, lightweight agent to all endpoint devices, supports a wide variety of device types ranging from workstations and servers to mobile and point-of-sale (POS) devices.
  - Using the download plug-in
    The download plug-in is an executable program that downloads relevant packages directly from the patch vendor. Fixlets use an internal protocol to communicate with the download plug-in to download files. These Fixlets are based on updates made by the vendor.
  - Using the download cacher
    The download cacher is a standalone command-line tool that is designed to download and cache files required for caching. The pre-cached files can be used by the download plug-in to patch the endpoints.
  - Using BigFix Patch for SUSE Linux Enterprise
    BigFix Patch provides a simplified patching process for downloading and installing patches that are relevant to a target endpoint. Use the Fixlets on the Patching Support and the various Patches for SUSE Linux Enterprise Fixlet sites to apply patches to your deployment.
  - Multiple-Package Baseline Installation
    BigFix Patch provides a solution to combine the installation of updates for multiple packages in a baseline into a single task, which can reduce the execution time of the baseline.
  - Custom repositories management
    You can set up your custom repositories and Subscription Management Tool (SMT) to manage patches for SUSE Linux Enterprise version 11 and later. This solution allows for multiple repositories and SMTs on the entire deployment.
    - SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard
      Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to easily integrate your existing custom repository or Subscription Management Tool (SMT) solutions with the BigFix patch management solution. Only endpoints on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Linux Enterprise Server versions 11, 12, and 15 are supported in this dashboard.
    - Adding a repository or SMT
      Add a custom repository or a Subscription Management Tool (SMT) server into the dashboard repository list so that you can register and connect it to endpoints.
    - Registering endpoints to a repository or SMT
      Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to connect your repositories and SMTs to endpoints.
    - Unregistering endpoints from a repository or SMT
      Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to unregister endpoints from repositories or SMTs that are no longer relevant.
    - Deleting repositories or SMTs
      To manage the dashboard repository list more easily, delete the repositories or SMTs that no longer exist in your deployment.
    - Importing repositories or SMTs
      Use the Import feature of the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to add all the known existing repositories of an endpoint to the list of repositories in the dashboard.
    - Installing packages from a custom repository
      BigFix provides a task to easily install and update custom packages on SUSE Linux Enterprise version 11 and later endpoints that are registered to custom repositories.
  - SLE Btrfs snapshot management
    View and manage SLE Btrfs snapshots from the BigFix console. Snapshot management uses Snapper's ability to roll back Btrfs file system snapshots. This feature works with SUSE Linux Enterprise version 11 SP2 and later.
  - Troubleshooting
    When problems occur, you can determine what went wrong by viewing messages in the appropriate log files that provide information about how to correct errors.
  - Frequently asked questions
    To better understand Patch Management for SUSE Linux™ Enterprise, read the following questions and answers.
- Patch for Ubuntu User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Ubuntu provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Ubuntu endpoints.
- Patch for Oracle Linux User's Guide
  BigFix® Patches for Oracle Linux provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Oracle Linux endpoints.
- Patch for Solaris User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Solaris provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Solaris endpoints.
- Patch for HP-UX User's Guide
  BigFix® for Patch for HP-UX provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all HP-UX endpoints.
- Patch for Mac OS X User's Guide
  BigFix® for Patch for Mac OS X provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Mac OS X endpoints.
- Patch for Debian User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Debian provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Debian endpoints.
- Patch for VMware ESXi User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for VMware ESXi provides you unified, near real-time visibility to manage patches to all VMware ESXi endpoints from a single console.
- Patch for Raspbian User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Raspbian provides Fixlets that you use to manage the latest updates and service packs that Raspberry Pi releases. These Fixlets are available through the Patches for Raspbian sites.
- Patch for Rocky Linux User's Guide
  BigFix Patch for Rocky Linux provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches to all Rocky Linux endpoints.
- Patch for Virtual Endpoint Manager User's Guide
  BigFix® for Virtual Endpoint Manager provides an automated, simplified patching process that is administered from a single console. It gives you unified, near real-time visibility and enforcement to deploy and manage patches in a virtual environment.
- Updates for Middleware Applications
  Middleware patching is an important process for organizations to ensure their systems are secure and up to date. By applying the appropriate patches and security updates, organizations can minimize the risk of malicious attacks and potential data loss. BigFix users can enjoy unified patch management by using a single platform for deploying database and middleware patches.
- Supersedence for Non-Windows
  This topic describes how supersedence works in Patch.

SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard

Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to easily integrate your existing custom repository or Subscription Management Tool (SMT) solutions with the BigFix patch management solution. Only endpoints on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Linux Enterprise Server versions 11, 12, and 15 are supported in this dashboard.

The SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard allows the SUSE Linux Enterprise Fixlets to use Zypper for downloads instead of using the standard BigFix downloading infrastructure. The dashboard also allows you to register your custom repositories to use the Zypper commands when installing packages on the endpoints.

To access the dashboard, subscribe to the Patching Support site. From the Patch Management domain, click All Patch Management > Dashboards > SLE Custom Repository Management. Activate the Repository Configuration - SUSE Linux Enterprise analysis to view the content in the dashboard.

Important: Your custom repositories must be pre-configured with the required metadata and headers before you use the dashboard.

Use the SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard to perform the following actions for patch management:

Register and unregister endpoints to a repository (custom repositories or SMT servers)
Add, delete, and import custom repositories and SMT servers to the repository dashboard list

SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard — Figure 1. SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard

Note: The SLE Custom Repository Management dashboard does not support the creation of a physical repository server or SMT. You must create the repository separately. For more information about creating repositories, see the following resources:

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 Deployment Guide at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sled11/book_sle_deployment/data/sec_y2_sw_instsource.html
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Deployment Guide at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles11/book_sle_deployment/data/sec_y2_sw_instsource.html
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 12 Deployment Guide at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sled-12/book_sle_deployment/data/book_sle_deployment.html
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Deployment Guide at https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-12/book_sle_deployment/data/book_sle_deployment.html

Important: You must register the SCC download plug-in when using custom repositories to avoid download errors. The download plug-in can be registered through the Manage Download Plug-ins dashboard.