3 Starting Smart Update

Unzipping Downloaded Patches

All SU Patch files that you download from My Oracle Support are compressed ZIP files. Before you run Smart Update to apply the patches, you must decompress these ZIP files using the appropriate tool for your environment (such as 7-Zip or WinZip for Windows, or tar or gunzip for Linux).

When you unzip each file, the patch JAR file and a README.txt file are extracted. When extracting the files, note that you must extract the files into the directory from which you intend to apply the patches. This is the location that you set as the Patch Download Directory of Smart Update, as described in Setting Preferences. Alternatively, you can extract the files to a subdirectory, and then move the patch JAR file to the patch download directory.

Obtaining Required Access

Before you start Smart Update, ensure that you have access to all required resources. Specifically:

• Ensure that you have proper write privileges for the patch download directory, particularly if this directory resides on a remote disk drive or computer.

• Ensure that 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.

Choosing a Patch Download Directory

Before you apply patches that you have downloaded from My Oracle Support, Oracle recommends that you choose an appropriate location to serve as the patch download directory. Store all downloaded patches in this directory.

The patch download directory is a single-level directory or folder that Smart Update uses to determine which patches are available to be applied. Before you start applying patches, ensure that you have designated a directory to serve this function, as described in this section.

A patch download directory is created automatically when you upgrade to Smart Update 3.3.0, 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 patches 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 the flexibility of Smart Update for storing updates, you can adapt 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. From the main Smart Update window, choose File > Preferences.

   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:

   • The directory MW_HOME\utils\bsu\cache_dir is created as the default patch download directory when you install Smart Update 3.3.0.

   • Until you specify a different directory, the default patch download directory is used for storing downloaded patches for all products on your system; the directory used for this purpose is not changed when additional Middleware home directories are created.

   • If you have multiple Middleware home directories, Oracle recommends that you change the Patch Download Directory to point to the MW_HOME\utils\bsu\cache_dir for the installation target to which the patches apply. By doing so, the patches will be available if you need to apply them when running Smart Update from the Middleware home for the target installation.

Displaying Patch Sets in the Downloaded Patches Panel

Smart Update lets you select a display mode for Smart Update patch sets shown in the Downloaded Patches panel of the main Smart Update window. Smart Update patch sets are a group of patches that are bundled into a single patch. These should not be confused with Oracle Patch Set releases (version upgrades) for WebLogic Server, which can only be installed using an Upgrade installer.

• Choose Display patch sets and all constituent patches if you want to display an entry for each patch in a patch set you have installed, and an entry for the patch set itself. (This is the default setting.)

• Choose Hide constituent patches when patch set is present and complete if you want to display only the entry for the patch set that you have installed, hiding entries for individual patches that belong to the set.

Setting HTTP Proxy Information

If the system on which you are running Smart Update is located behind a firewall, you might need to specify one of the following options so that you can download patches. These settings apply only to the Smart Update client self-update mechanism. Smart Update can check to see if an updated version of the Smart Update client is available, and if so, prompts you to download it. Smart Update then updates itself to the new version.

• Use HTTP Proxy

  Select this option if you want to use an HTTP Proxy server for the download. To use an HTTP Proxy server, you must specify the following settings in Smart Update, before logging into the download server for the first time. Subsequently you do not need to change the settings.

  In the Login dialog box, click Work Offline, and specify the following:

  • Host—The name or IP address of the proxy server

  • Port—The port number of the proxy server

• Use Authentication

  Select this option if the HTTP Proxy server you are using requires server-side authentication. If you select this option, you must specify:

  • Username—A valid username required by the proxy server

  • Password—A valid password for the user