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.

Baselines can help you gather multiple Fixlets into groups, which you can apply immediately to any set of target computers. It is a powerful way to deploy a group of actions across an entire network. However, each Fixlet in a baseline creates a separate update transaction when the baseline is run. A single baseline can have numerous calls, which can severely impact performance as it increases the time taken to complete all the transactions.

The multiple-package baseline installation solution helps improve the performance that is due to the dependency resolution and package installation that is done separately for each Fixlet. This solution requires you to enable the feature at the start of the baseline and append the installation task to install the relevant packages from a single call.

Use the Enable the Multiple-Package Baseline Installation feature task to set the flag that instructs Fixlets to add packages to a list instead of installing them. The flag is cleared after the baseline is completed. You must add the appropriate task at the start of the baseline to allow the installation of multiple packages from a single command.

A multiple-package installation task is made available for each Red Hat distribution, operating system version, service pack level, and architecture. You must add the appropriate installation task at the end of your baseline to complete the dependency resolution, download the packages, and then install them on the endpoints.

Use the appropriate task to install the relevant packages listed on the MultiPkgInstall.txt file, located in the following directory locations from a single yum call.

On Linux systems: /var/opt/BESClient/EDRDeployData

The task action skips packages with broken dependencies.

These tasks must be run at the end of the baseline to do dependency resolution and package installation for the entire baseline in a single instance.

Note: Ensure that the following option is unchecked for the related tasks: Baseline will be relevant on applicable computers where this component is relevant.

You can also do a dry run of the installation to preview the changes on the packages to avoid broken dependencies, which might be due to undesired packages updates. The test action outputs to the following file at /var/opt/BESClient/EDRDeployData.

PkgToInstallList.txt file: This file contains packages that are to be installed after a dependency check.

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