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Installing Maintenance Updates and Service Packs

# Best Practices for Distributing Maintenance Updates

This section provides the following topics:

- Distributing Maintenance Patches to a Production Environment
- Providing Maintenance Patches to Systems that Cannot Connect to BEA Customer Support

# Distributing Maintenance Patches to a Production Environment

This section discusses the following models for distributing patches to a production environment:

- Using Smart Update Scripts to Promote a Standard Maintenance Level to a Production Environment
- Creating and Distributing an Archive of the Product Installation

These models assume the following about the software maintenance that is provided for machines in the production environment:

- Updates obtained from a vendor are tightly controlled and managed. For example, they might be kept in a secure repository that few individuals in MIS are authorized to access. Copying or downloading updates into the repository might be subject to rigorous approval, scheduling, auditing, and logging procedures.
- Updates are promoted to production systems in specific stages during which they are thoroughly tested. For example, an update might first be installed on a single machine, separated from the production environment, in which production applications are tested to ensure that the update works as expected and does not introduce regressions. Before being rolled out into the production environment, the updates may be tested in an intermediate staging area, where it is subject to loads that mimic expected usage in the production environment.
- When an update is introduced into the production environment itself, all machines on which the update is installed must run the updated product software at precisely the same maintenance level. For example, the domain configuration, product version, and patch level of WebLogic Server 9.1 used in all machines is identical.
- Machines in the production environment may not obtain updates from the Internet. In fact, the machines may not be connected to the Internet at all, and possibly not to the same Local Area Network shared by machines that have an Internet connection. Instead, updates are made available only from a specific location, or set of locations, in the enterprise. And the downloading of updates to the production machines are regulated by several business practices and procedures.
- The WebLogic Server instances used in the production environment are started by highly customized scripts.

## Using Smart Update Scripts to Promote a Standard Maintenance Level to a Production Environment

This section describes an example scenario of how the features in Smart Update can be leveraged to distribute maintenance updates to production systems that are subject to some or all of the conditions described in the preceding paragraphs.

1. BEA Customer Support has provided a private patch to solve a problem that Avitek has reported with its enterprise applications that run on WebLogic Server 9.1.
2. Bob Jones, in the Avitek MIS department, downloads the patch into the patch download directory for his machine, which is set to a network disk used by MIS to store maintenance updates provided by all of Avitek's software vendors.
3. Rachel Burns works in Avitek's QA department, and her job is to test the patch on her machine, which also has a WebLogic Server installation identical to the one used in the production environment. The domain configuration on Rachel's machine is similar to the WebLogic domains running in Avitek's production environment. Rachel created the WebLogic Server start scripts used in the production environment, which also run on her machine.

Rachel runs Smart Update in offline mode. She makes sure that the patch download directory is set to the directory used by Bob, and then she applies the patch to her WebLogic Server installation.

4. Rachel realizes that because the production systems use customized WebLogic Server start scripts, the scripts will need to be modified so that the classes contained in the patch are loaded into the WebLogic system classpath on her machine.

Rachel adds a definition of the `PATCH_CLASSPATH` variable to the start script so that it points to the default patch profile, then she adds this variable to the beginning of the `SET WEBLOGIC_CLASSPATH` statement.

5. Rachel successfully tests the patch, and is ready to replicate the patch throughout the 20 BEA product installations that run in Avitek's production environment. Because each production machine is nearly identical, Rachel knows that she can create a script that will work on every machine to apply the patch.

She creates the script. Its function is very simple: it applies the patch to the default patch profile for the target installation, and it copies an updated start script into the proper location of each machine.

6. Rachel uploads the patch to a patch download directory kept on a secure disk that is used by the production machines in Avitek's DMZ. She also uploads the Smart Update script and new WebLogic Server start script onto the secure disk.
7. Dagmar Kohl administers the machines in Avitek's production environment. She downloads the Smart Update script onto each production machine and runs it.

Because of the patch contents, Dagmar knows that each server needs to be rebooted for the patch to take effect. Once the servers are rebooted, the maintenance procedure is complete.

## Creating and Distributing an Archive of the Product Installation

As an alternative to the scenario described in Using Smart Update Scripts to Promote a Standard Maintenance Level to a Production Environment, you can create an archive of a fully patched BEA product image, and replicate that image throughout all the machines in a production environment. If you take this approach, note the following caveats:

- BEA does not recommend this approach. We always recommend the use of BEA product installers for creating a BEA product installation on a machine, and of Smart Update to distribute patches.
- If a BEA product installation includes maintenance patches that have been applied using Smart Update, you must include the following directories in the archive image, which exist at the top level of the BEA Home directory:

- `patch_weblogic910`, and all subdirectories
- `utils`, and all subdirectories

# Providing Maintenance Patches to Systems that Cannot Connect to BEA Customer Support

As mentioned in Providing Maintenance to a Machine with No Connection to BEA Customer Support, Smart Update's offline usage mode allows you to install maintenance updates on machines from which it is not possible to connect to BEA Customer Support. This section describes the following methods you can use for providing patches and patch sets to these machines:

- Patching an Offline Machine Via a Shared Patch Download Directory
- Patching an Offline Machine Via Removable Media
- Additional Means for Patching an Offline Machine

For the purposes of describing these techniques in these sections, a machine that cannot connect to BEA Customer Support is called an offline machine.

## Patching an Offline Machine Via a Shared Patch Download Directory

The following topics explain how to patch an offline machine via a shared patch download directory:

- Requirements
- Steps

### Requirements

Installing maintenance updates on an offline machine via a shared patch download directory has the following two primary requirements:

- A machine that can establish a connection to BEA Customer Support and that has the following:

- A local installation of a BEA product that matches the product and version of the BEA product installed on the offline machine
- A BEA user account

- A networked disk that can be accessed by both the machine that can connect to BEA Customer Support and the offline machine

### Steps

To patch a disconnected system remotely from the machine with Internet access, complete the following steps using the machine that has Internet access:

1. From the machine that can connect to BEA Customer Support:

1. Start Smart Update and log in to BEA Customer Support.
2. Choose File—> Preferences, and select a location for the patch download directory that is accessible by the offline machine. Make sure it is a location to which you have write permissions.
3. If you are downloading a publicly available patch, choose the product installation in the Target Installation panel that matches the product and version of the BEA software installed on the offline machine.
4. Download all required patches, as described in Downloading and Applying Patches.

2. From the offline machine:

1. Start Smart Update, and click Work Offline in the Login dialog box.
2. Choose File—> Preferences..., and set the patch download directory to the location into which the patches were downloaded by the machine that connected to BEA Customer Support.
3. In the Target Installation panel, choose the target installation to which you want to apply the patches.
4. Select the Manage Patches tab, and make sure the appropriate patch profile is selected.
5. In the Downloaded Patches panel, click Apply next to the patches you want to apply.
6. Complete the procedure for applying patches, as described in Applying and Managing Patches.

## Patching an Offline Machine Via Removable Media

The following topics explain how to patch an offline machine via removable media:

- Requirements
- Steps

### Requirements

Installing maintenance updates on an offline machine via removable media has the following two primary requirements:

- A machine that can establish a connection to BEA Customer Support and that has the following:

- A local installation of a BEA product that matches the product and version of the BEA product installed on the offline machine
- A BEA user account

- The ability to place patches onto a type of removable media that can be used by both the machine with the BEA Customer Support connection as well as the offline machine. For example: writable CD-ROM, memory key, or floppy diskette.

### Steps

To apply patches to an offline machine via removable media, complete the following steps.

1. From the machine that can connect to BEA Customer Support:

1. Start Smart Update and log in to BEA Customer Support.
2. If you are downloading a publicly available patch, choose the product installation in the Target Installation panel that matches the product and version of the BEA software installed on the offline machine.
3. Download all required patches, as described in Downloading and Applying Patches.
4. Copy the downloaded patches onto the removable media.

2. From the offline machine:

1. Mount the removable media onto the offline machine.
2. Start Smart Update, and click Work Offline in the Login dialog box.
3. Choose File—> Preferences... and set the patch download directory as the directory the removable media containing the patches.
4. In the Target Installation panel, select the target installation to be patched.
5. Select the Manage Patches tab, and select the appropriate patch profile.
6. From the Downloaded Patches panel, click Apply next to each patch that you want to apply.
7. Complete the procedure for applying patches, as described in Applying and Managing Patches.

## Additional Means for Patching an Offline Machine

BEA Customer Support may provide you with alternative means, as appropriate, for providing you with patches if you are unable to make an online connection to BEA Customer Support.