Patch Policy Execution Time

[jowbaldw]

So today our lab cart was being used for a test. These machines are always on or supposed to be. I installed a Firefox patch (version 57.0) the other day. When these machines came online there was the 15 minute message about having to shutdown to install the update.

The issue is this was during a test. So some computers had the browser shutdown and they had to re-login.

Another issue was Word also had an update and several users were in the middle of a document when the warning went out to shutdown and save their work. What if they had left their machine to go to the bathroom or something?

We are going to instruct people to use Safari but how do people get around these Patch Management issues?

I could make everything self service but I like the idea of pushing patches. I can make the time longer I guess.

Suggestions?

[kacey3]

We were able to create a maintenance window for our patch management policies using some creative scripting and static groups. It's a bit of a workaround, but it gives us much more control over our application updates while still leveraging the built in patch management system.

You can see how we made this work here: https://community.jamf.com/t5/jamf-pro/creating-a-patch-policy-maintenance-window/m-p/301107#M264970