Create and Edit Patches

To create a custom patch alert, proceed as follows:

  1. Click Main Menu  Patches  Manage Patches  Published. Then on the Patches Management page, click Create Patch.

    patches create patch

  2. Enter a label for the patch in the Advisory field, ideally following a naming convention adopted by your organization.

  3. Complete all remaining required fields, then click the Create Patch button. View standard SUSE Alerts for examples of properly completed fields.

Patch management distinguishes between published and unpublished patches.

  • Published : this page displays the patch alerts the organization has created and disseminated. To edit an existing published patch, follow the steps described in Assigning Packages to Patches. To distribute the patch, click Send Notification in the Send Patch Mail section on the top of the Patch Details page. The patch alert is sent to the administrators of all affected systems.

  • Unublished : this page displays the patch alerts your organization has created but not yet distributed. To edit an existing unpublished patch, follow the steps described in Assigning Packages to Patches. To publish the patch, click Publish Patch on the top-right corner of the Patch Details page. Confirm the channels associated with the patch and click the Publish Patch button, now in the lower-right corner. The patch alert is moved to the Published page awaiting distribution.

SUSE Manager administrators can also create patches by cloning an existing one. Cloning preserves package associations and simplifies issuing patches. See Clone Patches for instructions.

To edit an existing patch alert’s details, click its advisory on the Patches Management page, make the changes in the appropriate fields of the Details tab, and click the Update Patch button. Click the Channels tab to alter the patch’s channel association. Click the Packages tab to view and modify its packages.

To delete patches, select their check boxes on the Patches Management page, click the Delete Patches button, and confirm the action. Deleting published patches might take a few minutes.

Assigning Packages to Patches

To assign packages to patches, proceed as follows:

  1. Select a patch, click the Packages tab, then the Add subtab.

  2. To associate packages with the patch being edited, select the channel from the View drop-down box that contains the packages and click View. Packages already associated with the patch being edited are not displayed. Selecting All managed packages presents all available packages.

  3. After clicking View, the package list for the selected option appears. Note that the page header still lists the patch being edited.

  4. In the list, select the check boxes of the packages to be assigned to the edited patch and click Add Packages.

  5. A confirmation page appears with the packages listed. Click Confirm to associate the packages with the patch. The List/Remove subtab of the Managed Patch Details page appears with the new packages listed.

When packages are assigned to a patch, the patch cache is updated to reflect the changes. This update is delayed briefly so that users may finish editing a patch before all the changes are made available. To initiate the changes to the cache manually, follow the directions to Commit the Changes Immediately at the top of the page.

Publishing Patches

After adding packages to the patch, the patch needs to be published to be disseminated to affected systems. Follow this procedure to publish patches:

  1. On the top navigation bar, click Main Menu  Patches  Manage Patches  Unpublished to see all the unpublished patches listed.

  2. Click the patch Advisory name to open the patch details pages.

  3. On the patch details page, click Publish Patch. A confirmation page appears that will ask you to select which channels you want to make the patch available in. Choose the relevant channels.

  4. At the bottom of the page, click Publish Patch. The patch published will now appear on the Published page of Manage Patches.