Testing Updates in LiveUpdate Administrator 2.x (LUA 2.x)

Products

• Endpoint Protection

Issue/Introduction

To ensure there are no unforseen issues, our organization wishes to apply all updates in a test environment before rolling them out to the production network. Where can more information be found about the capability to test sets of definitions that have been downloaded by LiveUpdate Administrator 2.x?

Resolution

page 10 in Symantec LiveUpdate™ Administrator 2.2 User's Guide:

Symantec updates are downloaded from an external Symantec site to an internal Symantec LiveUpdate Administrator server. From there, the updates can either be sent immediately to a production distribution center to be downloaded by LiveUpdate clients, or sent to a testing center, so that the updates can be tested. Once the updates have passed your testing requirements, they are sent to the production center, on a schedule you determine.

Please note: testing updates is an optional activity. If company policy dictates the content updates must be tested prior to being placed into the production environment, a Testing Distribution Center must be configured and downloads configured to be tested. When updates have been tested, they can be then be marked as "passed" and then sent to the production distribution center.


page 48-51 in Symantec LiveUpdate™ Administrator 2.2 User's Guide:

Testing updates

When you create a download schedule or run a manual download request, you must set the testing status of the updates that you download. Updates can be marked as either Skip Test or Must Test. Updates that do not have to be tested can be sent directly to a production distribution center and are available for immediate downloading.

Each downloaded update has an associated testing state. The testing state lets you know whether the update has been tested and what stage the update is in. There are six possible testing states:

Untested The update has not been tested, but must be tested before it can be distributed to a production distribution center. This content has not yet been placed to a testing distribution server.

Passed The update has been successfully tested and is ready to be sent to a production distribution center.

Failed The update has failed testing. This update cannot be distributed to a production distribution center.

Test Not Required The update does not require testing prior to being distributed to a production distribution center.

Faulty The update initially passed testing, and was distributed to a production distribution center, but was later found to have problems.

Retest The update that has been found to be faulty, or has failed testing, and you would like to retest it.


You can view the test status of downloaded updates in Manage Updates. Updates that have been marked Untested can be sent to a testing distribution center, where they can then be distributed for further testing. After you've completed testing the updates, you can then mark them as Passed or Failed. Passed updates can then be sent to production distribution centers. Failed updated can be resent to the testing distribution center for further testing and the status changed to Retest.

Updates that you distribute to production distribution centers are either marked as Skip Test or Passed. If you find any issues with the updates after they've been distributed to a production center, you can mark them as Faulty and send them back to a testing center for further testing (the status is changed to Retest).

Only updates that are marked as Passed or Skip Test can be sent to a production distribution center. The Symantec LiveUpdate Administrator will not allow updates marked Test Failed or Faulty to be sent to any production distribution center.

Updates that are marked Untested will not be automatically sent to a production distribution center, but you can send them to a testing distribution center.

Note: Some update components are shared between products. If you have specified that updates for a particular product must be tested, any shared component updates will automatically be set to Must Test, and will display a status of Untested when they are downloaded.

Figure 5-1 shows a testing flow with the possible outcomes.

If you set the status of an update to Must Test, but have not yet tested it, the LiveUpdate Administrator sets the testing state to Untested. Otherwise, the status is set to Testing Not Required.

If the update state is Untested, the LiveUpdate Administrator will send the update to the appropriate testing distribution center. This can happen automatically, based upon a schedule that you determine, or you can distribute the update for testing manually.

Once you have completed testing the update, you set the status to Test Passed or Test Failed. Updates marked as Test Passed will then be available to production distribution centers. If the update has failed, you can retest the update, delete the update, or simply leave it in the Manage Updates folder.

If you have distributed an update to a production distribution center, and later determine that it is problematic, you can mark the update Test Faulty. This will prevent future operations from distributing the update to production distribution centers.


Please note: testing product updates and virus definitions is a manual procedure. It is not an automated function by which LiveUpdate Administrator 2.x tests the integrity of materials which have been downloaded: checks of this nature are already built in to the product. Testing the definitions generally involves creating a client settings host file which directs the test clients to download the defintions from a URL such as http://<LUA server IP>:7070/clu-test. Once the test clients have reported their findings back to the administrator, the Test Status can be updated in LUA 2.x accordingly. Passed updates can then be sent to production distribution centers.

Details in full can be found in the Symantec LiveUpdate™ Administrator 2.2 User's Guide.