Previewing and starting a remediation

The remediate preview process provides an up-to-date report about the patch state of servers. The Preview is an optional step that lets you see the patches that will be installed on managed servers. This preview process verifies whether the servers you selected for the patch installation already have that patch installed (based on wsusscn2.cab). In some cases, a server could already have the patch installed if a system administrator had manually installed it, which means that Patch Management does not know about it.

In the Preview, the servers, device groups, and patches that are listed in the Summary Step window will be submitted to remediation when you click Start Job. Patches that are not recommended by the vendor will be excluded from this list. If there are other patches in the policy with the same QNumber, only the vendor-recommended patch is displayed.

This list shows patches and their associated servers, regardless of any patch policy and server group membership changes that may have occurred. If you preview a remediation, this same list of servers, device groups, and patches will be used, even if changes have occurred to the patch policy or server group memberships.

If you modify parameters in the Remediate window after you have already clicked Preview, the preview process will produce an invalid summary of simulated patching actions. For example, if you have already clicked Preview and you add patches, patch policies, servers, or device groups, you must click Preview again for results that include your changes.

To preview a remediation:

1. In the Remediate window, in the Servers and Policies step, select a server or policy.
2. Click Next or select the Options step to specify your rebooting, error handling, and script preferences.
3. Click Next or select the Preview step to see the separate actions that will be performed when the patch is installed.
4. In the Preview step, click Preview to view the details of a previewed action.

5. To launch the installation job, click Start Job.

   If you selected Run Immediately After Analysis in the Scheduling step, the job will run now. If you selected a specific time, the job will run then.

6. The Job Status displays in the Remediate window.

   The Status bar and text indicate how many of the actions listed in the table have been completed. For each server, the following actions can be performed:

   • Overall Server Status: The overall status of all servers included in this remediation job.
   • Analyze: SA examines the patches needed for the installation, checks the managed servers for the most recent patches installed, and determines other actions that must be performed, such as download, install, or reboot.
   • Download: The patch is downloaded from Server Automation to the managed server.
   • Install: After it is downloaded, the patch is installed.
   • Reboot: If this action is specified in the Options step, the server is rebooted.
   • Registration: Software registration is performed to retrieve currently installed packages and patches on the managed server.
   • Test Compliance: A compliance scan is performed to report the current compliance status of the managed server.
   • Run Script: If scripts are specified in the Options step, the scripts are run before or/and after the download or/and installation.
   • Install & Reboot: If you specify to reboot the server according to each patch or package setting in the Options step, the server will be rebooted immediately after each individual patch or package is installed.

7. To view additional details about a specific action, select the row in the table to display this information in the bottom pane.

   Or

   In the navigation pane, select Jobs and Sessions to review detailed information about the job. See "Browsing Job Logs" in the SA 10.50 User Guide.

8. In the navigation pane, select Jobs and Sessions to review detailed information about the job. See "Browsing Job Logs" in the SA 10.50 User Guide.

9. Click End Job to prevent the job from running or click Close to close the Remediate window. You can end a job only if it is scheduled.

   (Optional) See the "Cancelling or Terminating Installation, Uninstallation or Remediation Jobs" section in the SA 10.50 Administration Guide.