HP-UX Software Assistant Administration Guide (5900-3003, March 2013)

1 Introducing HP-UX Software Assistant
HP-UX SWA overview
HP-UX Software Assistant (SWA) is a tool that consolidates and simplifies patch management and
security bulletin management on HP-UX systems.
SWA can perform a number of checks including applicable security bulletins and installed patches
with critical warnings. Once an analysis has been performed, you can use SWA to download any
recommended patches or patch bundles and create a depot ready for installation.
SWA requires an active HP support agreement (that includes Software Updates) linked to your
HPSC profile. HP recommends you use SWA version C.02.90 or later.
Release notes
For information on what's new with the latest version of SWA, see the HP-UX Software Assistant
Release Notes available at http://www.hp.com/go/swa-docs.
Capabilities
SWA's major functions are briefly outlined below.
Analyze
SWA runs as a client-side patch and security analysis tool. An HP-supplied catalog file with known
problems and fixes is downloaded from the HP Support Center (HPSC) and compared to the
software installed on the system. Depots used for full-system installation, such as the installation
depot on an OE DVD, may also be analyzed.
Systems are analyzed for patch warnings, critical defects, security bulletins, missing Quality Pack
(QPK) patch bundles, and user-specified patches and supersession chains.
SWA optimizes the automatic selection of patch dependencies by assessing the quality of the
dependency, providing the best case scenario for the dependency, minimizing changes to the
system, and assessing future patch dependency changes.
Report
SWA is able to generate a variety of reports based on its analysis. Action, Issue, and Detail reports
are available. A consolidated HTML report with links to the technical knowledge base is always
created. The SWA reports provide information for downloading software from HP and for actions
that need to be taken manually.
Download Software from HP
Based on the analysis, SWA obtains patches from HP and creates a Software Distributor (SD)
depot of software for installation.
SWA automatically uses MD5 cryptographic hash to verify patch integrity before unpacking
downloaded patches.
Command structure
HP-UX Software Assistant is a tool that uses a major mode style interface.
# swa <major mode>
SWA has the following major modes: report, get, step, and clean.
Extended options modify each SWA command. They can be specified on the command line or
saved in a configuration file.
# swa <major mode> -x <extended_option>
HP-UX SWA overview 5