Managing Pega hotfixes
I'm aware that Pega is discouraging hotfixes going forward, but pre-v7 systems are still being supported, and the occasional hotfix is needed for v7.
Some questions on the hotfix file format.
Some questions:
- Is there any way that links to PegaLFT can be accessible by whole customer, and not just the person who filed the SR? Things happen where people are not available, and these need to be shared.
- The DL files have ZIP extension, but aren't really zip files, since they are JAR files. Why not call them JAR files? And, what I'm seeing with some recent DL-* files, the contents are in the root path, complicating the ability to easily review these (see below), since jar xvf doesn't work.
- The catalog.zip is 3.7MB in these downloadables. What is the value of this inherent to the fix? Smaller files are easier in general.
% jar tvf DL-43208.jar
3733953 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /CATALOG.ZIP
1627 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /DL-43208_README.TXT
10608 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /HFIX-5122.JAR
3878 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /INSTALLORDER.PEGA
I'm aware that Pega is discouraging hotfixes going forward, but pre-v7 systems are still being supported, and the occasional hotfix is needed for v7.
Some questions on the hotfix file format.
Some questions:
- Is there any way that links to PegaLFT can be accessible by whole customer, and not just the person who filed the SR? Things happen where people are not available, and these need to be shared.
- The DL files have ZIP extension, but aren't really zip files, since they are JAR files. Why not call them JAR files? And, what I'm seeing with some recent DL-* files, the contents are in the root path, complicating the ability to easily review these (see below), since jar xvf doesn't work.
- The catalog.zip is 3.7MB in these downloadables. What is the value of this inherent to the fix? Smaller files are easier in general.
% jar tvf DL-43208.jar
3733953 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /CATALOG.ZIP
1627 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /DL-43208_README.TXT
10608 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /HFIX-5122.JAR
3878 Mon Mar 23 10:40:44 EDT 2015 /INSTALLORDER.PEGA
***Updated by moderator: Marissa to close post***
This post has been archived for educational purposes. Contents and links will no longer be updated. If you have the same/similar question, please write a new post.
Accepted Solution
Updated: 26 Mar 2015 19:35 EDT
Pegasystems Inc.
US
Hi Jon,
1) Is there any way that links to PegaLFT can be accessible by whole customer, and not just the person who filed the SR? Things happen where people are not available, and these need to be shared.
Yes! When sending files via PegaLFT there is an option to "Mark as non-confidential" that will not require a login to get the file. When not using this option the person sent the file has to login into PegaFTA to get the file. The login to get the file is actually is based on who the file was sent to, not the owner of the SR.
With the "Mark as non-confidential" option you can then share this e-mail and have others download it etc. You may not always want us to send files this way but you can ask us to do so. The same is true when you upload files to us as well but be careful here, you may always want to make sure this is more secure depending on the content.
2) The DL files have ZIP extension, but aren't really zip files, since they are JAR files. Why not call them JAR files? And, what I'm seeing with some recent DL-* files, the contents are in the root path, complicating the ability to easily review these (see below), since jar xvf doesn't work.
You want to be able to see the contents in all the Hfixes in the DL using jar-xvf. I understand this, have to look at contents of these on occasion and it was a pain. I created a little utility called DLInspector that lets me look at all the contents in a DL file. I will send it to you via PegaLFT.
Hi Jon,
1) Is there any way that links to PegaLFT can be accessible by whole customer, and not just the person who filed the SR? Things happen where people are not available, and these need to be shared.
Yes! When sending files via PegaLFT there is an option to "Mark as non-confidential" that will not require a login to get the file. When not using this option the person sent the file has to login into PegaFTA to get the file. The login to get the file is actually is based on who the file was sent to, not the owner of the SR.
With the "Mark as non-confidential" option you can then share this e-mail and have others download it etc. You may not always want us to send files this way but you can ask us to do so. The same is true when you upload files to us as well but be careful here, you may always want to make sure this is more secure depending on the content.
2) The DL files have ZIP extension, but aren't really zip files, since they are JAR files. Why not call them JAR files? And, what I'm seeing with some recent DL-* files, the contents are in the root path, complicating the ability to easily review these (see below), since jar xvf doesn't work.
You want to be able to see the contents in all the Hfixes in the DL using jar-xvf. I understand this, have to look at contents of these on occasion and it was a pain. I created a little utility called DLInspector that lets me look at all the contents in a DL file. I will send it to you via PegaLFT.
I don't think we will change the way DL items are packaged. This would require changes to both how we package them and also the code layers that read and import them. I know there are Update Manager changes coming in ML 8 or 9 so I will check if there are plans to restructure this.
3) The catalog.zip is 3.7MB in these downloadables. What is the value of this inherent to the fix? Smaller files are easier in general.
Yep, and for a very good reason. The catalog sent with the DL is the latest catalog available when the DL creation process looks for dependencies and includes them. During the install the packaged catalog is used during the dependency checker part of the Update Manager Install Hotfix processing. It's used in the the transition between what is in the DL item and screen that shows you what will be installed or skipped. It's really important that the catalog used during creation of the DL is also used to determine what needs to get installed on the target system.
--Chris
Pegasystems
US
Hi Chris,
My question isn’t whether they have same or different expirations. My question was more about whether they have expirations at all.
The reason for asking is that if they have expirations, then it decreases the usefulness of publishing the LFT file references, since the published reference will become useless once it expires.
/Eric
BNY Mellon
US
Thanks!
#1, I will communicate to our team here.
#2, awesome! We will have a look at the tool here.
#3, I still remain a bit skeptical as to how large the dependency chain needs to be, but that doesn't really concern me.
Pegasystems Inc.
US
Hi Jon,
I just wanted to add to a couple of things to Chris' answers for #2 and #3:
#2 - One of the reasons that DLs have a zip extension is that it makes it easier to send them to customers via email. Many email servers will strip out or otherwise block files with a jar extension, as I'm sure you are aware.
#3 - In 7.1.8, we will stop sending the whole catalog with every DL, and instead only send information in the catalog file about the hotfixes for the version of the DL. For example, the catalog in a 7.1.7 DL will only contain information about 7.1.7 hotfixes. The reason it is so big now is that it contains everything. So the catalog files in DLs going forward should be much smaller.
- Jim