Installing Patches and Maintenance Packs

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Starting Smart Update

This section provides the following topics:

Before You Start

Before you begin using Smart Update to download and apply maintenance updates to your product installations, be sure to read the following topics:

Designating the Patch Download Directory

The patch download directory is a single-level directory or folder into which patch files are placed when you download them from the BEA download server. Before you start downloading patches, make sure that you have designated a directory to serve this function, as described in this section.

A patch download directory is created automatically the first time you use Smart Update to download a patch, but you may not want to use it in its default location. For example, your organization might encourage or require you to use a particular location for storing maintenance updates that are downloaded from software vendors. This location might be a centralized repository, or a set of cache directories labeled for certain configurations. By taking advantage of Smart Update’s flexibility with respect to the storage of updates, you can adapt the maintenance download model of Smart Update to business practices in which software maintenance is administered centrally or in which the maintenance image must be replicated easily for promotion to QA, staging, and production environments.

To designate a patch download directory, complete the following steps:

  1. Start Smart Update.
    2. Note: Logging in to BEA Customer Support is not necessary.
  2. From the main Smart Update window, choose the File > Preferences menu option.

    3. The Preferences dialog box is displayed.

  3. In the Patch Download Directory section of the Preferences dialog box, specify the path of the patch download directory.

Note the following information about the patch download directory:

Obtaining Required Access

Before you start using Smart Update, make sure you have access to all required resources. Specifically:

  1. Make sure you have a valid BEA account and login ID. If you plan to download a private patch or a maintenance pack, make sure your BEA account is linked to your support contract. Because Smart Update always authenticates your user name when you log in to BEA Customer Support, make sure that when you run it, you are logged in with the user name specified for your BEA user account.
    2. Note: As long as you have a BEA user account, you can log in and obtain publicly available maintenance packs. Such access is available even if your support contract is not linked to your user account or if you do not have a support contract at all. Without a support contract, however, you cannot obtain private patches or maintenance packs.

    For information about obtaining a BEA user account and linking it to your support contract, see Obtaining a BEA Account and Accessing Your Contract Entitlement.

  2. Make sure you have proper write privileges for the patch download directory, particularly if this directory resides on a remote disk drive or machine.
  3. If you are running Smart Update on a machine located behind a firewall, you may need to specify, in the Preferences dialog box, one of two types of information: the host name and port number for an HTTP proxy server, or the authentication information required for perimeter security.
  4. Make sure you have the privileges required to access the target product installation directories. The ability to access these directories is especially important if you are patching product installations on networked or remotely mounted disk drives.

How to Start Smart Update

Table 2-1 provides instructions for starting the Smart Update graphical interface on Windows and UNIX systems.

Table 2-1 Starting Smart Update 
To start Smart Update on this platform . . .
Perform the following steps . . .
Windows
From the Start Menu, choose:
Start > Programs > Oracle Product > Smart Update
Or, from an MS-DOS command prompt window:
  1. Go to the BEA_HOME\utils\bsu directory, where BEA_HOME is the host directory for the product installation that you want to update.
  2. At the prompt, enter the following command:

    3. bsu.cmd

    The Smart Update login window is displayed.

UNIX

Note: If you want to run Smart Update on a UNIX system, the console attached to the machine on which you are upgrading the software must support a Java-based GUI.
  1. Log in to the UNIX system.
  2. Go to the BEA_HOME\utils\bsu directory, where BEA_HOME is the host directory for the product installation that you want to update.
  3. At the prompt, enter the following command:

    4. bsu.sh

    The Smart Update login window is displayed.

Logging In to Smart Update

To establish a connection to BEA Customer Support, enter the following information in the Login dialog box:

Because a connection to BEA Customer Support is required for the following operations, the Login dialog box is displayed whenever you:

Note: Logging in is not required to install and manage patches that you have already downloaded. however it is strongly recommended that you log in before you start applying patches so you can validate them with the latest dependency and conflict data. For more information about using Smart Update offline, see Working Offline.

Once you log in, Smart Update establishes an Internet connection to BEA Customer Support and provides you with the ability to perform the following tasks for the products installed on your machine:

Note: A support contract is not a prerequisite for viewing and downloading publicly available patches or for validating patches against the latest dependency and conflict data.
Related Topics

Obtaining a BEA Account and Accessing Your Contract Entitlement

Whenever you register online with BEA, regardless of whether you have made a purchase, you can obtain a BEA user account with a login ID, called the BEA login ID (sometimes also called MyBEA ID, or simply BEA ID), with which you can set your own password. Publicly available patches are freely available to anyone with a BEA account.

However, once you establish a support contract with BEA Customer Support, and link it to your BEA account, you may also download private patches and maintenance packs using your BEA login ID and password. Note that the Support ID you use to log in when you start Smart Update is simply your BEA login ID, and does not need to be linked to a support contract for the purposes of logging in.

To obtain a BEA account and to associate your BEA account with your support contract, complete the following steps:

  1. Click the following URL, or enter it into a Web browser, to display the main BEA Customer Support Web page at their online site, called eSupport:

    2. http://support.bea.com/

  2. Click Login/Register (It’s free!) near the top of the left column.
  3. If you do not already have a BEA account, complete the following steps:
    1. Click the large button near the center of the browser labeled Register with BEA. A Registration window is displayed.
    2. In the Registration window, enter the information required for your BEA account profile. Be sure to provide valid company information. Click Continue.
    3. In the Administer User Profiles window, enter additional details, as appropriate, for your account.
    4. In the Personal Interests section, under Personalize Your Content, click All BEA Products, and click Submit.
    5. To link your BEA account with a support contract, click Request for “Contract Customer Support” access on your account.
      6. Note: If you have purchased BEA products from resellers in Japan, ignore step e and contact the resellers to obtain the private patch and maintenance pack information.
    6. Click Submit Request.
  4. If you already have a BEA account, complete the following steps:
    1. Log in to the BEA Customer Support Web site, eSupport, using your BEA login ID and password.
    2. Click Profile/Access Management in the left column.
    3. In the list of links displayed under Profile/Access Management, click Manage User Profile. Update your profile, as appropriate. Make sure you select All BEA Products in the Personalize Your Content section.
    4. In the list of links displayed under Profile/Access Management, click Request Contract Support.
      5. Note: If you have purchased BEA products from resellers in Japan, ignore step d and contact the resellers to obtain the private patch and maintenance pack information.
    5. Click Submit Request.

After you submit your request, you receive two confirmations through email:

Processing of BEA Customer Support login requests typically takes two to four hours, but may take up to 48 hours. If you need assistance, contact the BEA Customer Support Team via phone, fax, or email. To obtain the appropriate contact information:

  1. In the left-hand column of the eSupport Web page from which you log in, click Support Resources. The main Support Resources window is displayed.
  2. In the main Support Resources window, click Contact Us. A list of phone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses is displayed. Find the appropriate contact information for the Support Team nearest you.

Working Offline

You do not need to log in to BEA Customer Support to use Smart Update. If you are managing or installing maintenance updates to the product installations, you can work offline.

Note the following:

You can initiate an offline Smart Update session in either of the following ways:

Setting Preferences

The Preferences dialog box allows you to set the following options:

Choosing a Patch Download Directory

Before you start downloading patches from BEA Customer Support, we recommend that you choose an appropriate location to serve as the patch download directory. For more information, see Designating the Patch Download Directory.

Displaying Patch Sets in the Downloaded Patches Panel

Smart Update lets you select a display mode for patch sets shown in the Downloaded Patches panel of the main Smart Update window:

The second display mode (Hide constituent patches when patch set is present and complete) is in effect only for the Downloaded Patches panel. This setting does not affect the display of patch sets and constituent patches in other locations of the Smart Update interface; namely, in the list of publicly available patch sets in the Get Patches tab, and in the list of patch sets for each profile displayed in the Manage Patches tab.

Setting HTTP Proxy Information

If the machine on which you are running Smart Update is located behind a firewall, you may need to specify one of the following so that you can download patches and install maintenance packs:

Related Topics

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