Walkthrough: Setting up and managing an online patch catalog for Windows

1. Log on as BLAdmin or preferably as PatchingUser.
   PatchingUser is the user account that was set up in Walkthrough-Restricting-permissions-for-a-patching-administrator.
2. Expand the Depot folder and navigate to a subfolder where you want to create a patch catalog.
3. Right-click the subfolder and select New > Patch Catalog > Windows Patch Catalog.
   The New Patch Catalog panel opens. 
4. For Name, enter a name for the patch catalog you are creating. For example, enter Microsoft Windows Server 2012.
5. Under Catalog Mode, make sure Source From Vendor (Online Mode) is selected. 
6. These fields may be completed dynamically if your organization has globally configured patch access.
7. For Repository Location (NSH Path), enter a location on a Windows platform where patch information can be stored. This location must have ample free space–typically many gigabytes. Enter the location using a Network Shell-style path.

Optionally, you can schedule a job to execute immediately, schedule a job at a specific time in the future, schedule a job on a recurring basis, and define notifications that are issued when a job runs. Scheduling is not essential because you can also trigger a Catalog Update Job manually. In production environments, however, BMC recommends that you schedule the job to ensure that a catalog always has the most recent patches. In this example, we set up the job to run immediately and also to run on the first Tuesday of every month afterwards.

1. Click Job Options.
2. Click Schedules.
3. Select Execute job now to indicate the job should run as soon as you save the window. 
4. Click New Schedule and define the a job schedule. In this example, we want to schedule it to update Tuesday mornings. You may want to use a different time, day, or even update less often.
   1. Click Monthly.
   2. Select First and Tuesday.
   3. Enter a time, such as 08:00.

Updating the patch catalog is an important task, so if there's a problem, someone will want to know about it. For email notifications to be sent, a mail server must be configured for the Application Server. This step is only required if you want to receive a notification email when this job runs.

1. Click Scheduled Job Notifications.
2. Select Send email to.
3. Enter an email address of someone to be notified if this job fails. Separate multiple email addresses with semicolons, such as sysadmin@bmc.com;sysmgr@bmc.com. 
4. Check one or more statuses that will generate an email, for example, Failed.
5. Select Send SNMP trap to. When a job completes, an SNMP trap is sent to a specified server, where it can be read using software that receives and interprets SNMP traps.
6. Enter a server name or IP address.
7. Check one or more options, for example, Failed.
8. Click OK.

Optionally, you can define default notifications that are generated when a job completes. If you have set up notifications for a particular scheduled job, those notifications are generated instead of default notifications.

1. Click Job Run Notifications.
2. Select Send email to.
3. Enter an email address of someone to be notified if this job fails. Separate multiple email addresses with semicolons, such as sysadmin@bmc.com;sysmgr@bmc.com. 
4. Check one or more statuses that will generate an email, for example, Failed.
5. Select Send SNMP trap to. When a job completes, an SNMP trap is sent to a specified server, where it can be read using software that receives and interprets SNMP traps.
6. Enter a server name or IP address.
7. Check one or more options, for example, Failed.

1. Click Depot Object Options.
2. Make sure that Network URL Type for Payload Deployment is set to Copy To Agent At Staging.
   This setting means TrueSight Server Automation copies patch payloads from the patch repository to a staging directory on the target server when you are deploying patches.
3. For Network URL for Payload Deployment, enter a location on a Linux platform where the payload deployment information can be stored. This location must have ample free space–typically many gigabytes. Enter the location using a Network Shell-style path.
4. For RBAC Policy, browse to and select a predefined ACL Policy. Permissions defined by the ACL Policy are assigned to all Depot objects created in the catalog.
5. For Max Depot Object Work Items to process in parallel, you can set the maximum number of work items that can be performed in parallel. The default is 15.

You can specify a list of properties automatically assigned to a job. In this list, you can modify the value of any properties that are defined as editable.

1. Click Job Properties.
2. Select a property and click to edit the value.

You can add individual permissions to a job. You can also set permissions by adding ACL templates or ACL policies.  ACLs control access to all objects, including the sharing of objects between roles.

1. Click Permissions.
2. Under Access Control List, add a new authorized role or delete a role as needed.
3. Under ACL Policies, add a new group policy or replace the ACL with selected policies as needed.
4. Click OK to save your changes and close the window.

Click Finish.
The Patch Catalog Job starts running. You can watch its progress on the Tasks in Progress pane. 

1. When the job completes, you can use the Depot folder and navigate to the location where you created the patch catalog. You selected this location in the first step.
2. Right-click the catalog, and select Open.
   The pane at right show the definition of the patch catalog job.
3. Click the Results tab. 
   A green check indicates the job ran successfully.