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 zypper update transaction when the baseline is run. A single baseline can have numerous zypper calls, which can severely impact performance as it increases the time taken to complete all the transactions.

The multiple-package baseline installation solution helps address the poor 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 zypper call.

Use the Enable the Multiple-Package Baseline Installation feature task or 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.

Use the appropriate task to install the relevant packages listed on the MultiPkgInstall.txt file, located in the /var/opt/BESClient/EDRDeployData directory, from a single zypper call. 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.

For detailed information about using the multiple package installation feature, see Installing multiple packages in a baseline.