As part of the Advanced Software Management process, you need to decide the following:
- When do you want to scan devices?
- When do you want to install updates?
- What devices do you want to update?
- What updates do you want to install?
These steps can be done in any order, but they are all required.
When do you want to scan devices?
A scan must be done to check devices for what updates they need. Scanning devices for missing updates is essential to third party software management to identify what updates should be installed.
Scanning for missing updates is a free feature available to all Barracuda RMM users. By default, all devices that have an Advanced Software Management policy assigned are scanned every 22 hours, with the result displayed on the Advanced Software Management > Overview page. To change the frequency and time the scan runs, you can create a new Advanced Software Management policy or edit the default Advanced Software Management policy. See Creating an Advanced Software Management Policy or Understanding the Pre-Built Advanced Software Management policy.
When do you want to install updates?
To set when to update devices, you can create one or more execution schedules that can repeat daily, weekly, or monthly. The execution schedule also identifies options that control when and how devices reboot when updates are applied.
To choose when to update devices, see Scheduling Third Party Software Updates.
What devices do you want to update?
You identify the devices you want to update by applying one of the Advanced Software Management policies to devices. There are two ways to apply a policy to devices:
- Through auto-application rules.
- By applying the policy to individual devices or approval groups.
Auto-application rules determine which devices are eligible to have a Advanced Software Management policy applied. Automatic approval rules can be set up in Advanced Software Management policies, and then, when you add the policy to an active service, any devices that meet the criteria in the auto-application rule have the policy applied to them automatically.
You can also apply Advanced Software Management policies to devices and groups manually. Simply select devices in sites or groups, and when you add the policy to an active service, the devices have the policy applied to them.
Prerequisites for using Advanced Software Management on devices
Patch caching for Advanced Software Management does not take a significant amount of memory on devices.
Devices must use one of the following operating systems:
Windows
macOS Big Sur or higher. For more information on macOS devices, see Advanced Software Management for macOS Devices.
Windows devices must be WMI-enabled.
macOS devices must be SSH-enabled.
macOS devices must be prepared using the macOS Prep Utility before macOS applications can be patched. See To run the macOS Prep Utility in Deploying Onsite Manager within a Domain.
What updates do you want to install?
You can approve patches for installation two ways:
- Manually—Approving updates individually, by searching a list of all missing patches and changing approvals. Changing a patch’s approval to Install schedules that patch for deployment according to the applicable Advanced Software Management policy.
- Automatically—Creating a set of rules that determines which updates are deployed. Using automatic patch approval automates the installation of patches on a group of devices.
Any patches you approve are installed according to Advanced Software Management policies.
To approve patches, see Choosing Which Third Party Patches to Apply.