SAS Depot contents required for downloading hot fixes

[Nigel_Pain]

SAS 9.4M7 on Windows Server 2012 R2

Does anyone know if there's a subset of the contents of the SAS Depot which can be used for running the Deployment Wizard "Retrieve Hot Fixes" function? The reason I ask is that the server which contains our Depot doesn't have internet access and so we can't do this. The only option is to copy the Depot to a staging server with internet access (it's in our Demilitarised Zone) and run the Deployment Wizard from there. But the staging server has fairly restricted disk space so I'd like to limit what I copy across or the server admins will be on my case!

Thanks

[SASKiwi]

I typically download SAS depots to my laptop (which has internet access) and then copy them to the required server location. Since you are copying to a Windows server that is very easy to do in Windows Explorer using folder shares like \\MySASServer\D$ which will access the server D drive, assuming you have the correct permissions.

[angian]

To be honest, even though I have been installer SAS for 20 years I have never noticed the "Retrieve Hot Fixes" feature in a Depot.  I am pretty sure this is just "truing up" the depot and not looking at what is deployed in the environment via the DeploymentRegistry.  The more common way of retrieving SAS Hot Fixes is to use SASHFADD 

https://support.sas.com/en/technical-support/maintenance/hot-fixes/hot-fix-analysis-download-deploym...

This tool has a small footprint and can be run on any machine, even a laptop.  The key is that you provide the DeploymentRegistry.txt from a SAS deployment tier you are looking to hot fix.  

This thread is a little old but gives of good summary of the hot fix process

https://communities.sas.com/t5/Administration-and-Deployment/Applying-hotfixes/m-p/584831/highlight/...

[Nigel_Pain]

Thanks to both @SASKiwi and @angian for your responses. The reason I need to get the hotfixes this way is so that they can be added to the Depot for applying to existing and new client software deployments - mainly EG and AMO, but also Management Console, and we have several hundred existing ones. Installations of client software takes place using SCCM, as does the application of hotfixes, but only if I can add them to the Depot. Once that happens, any new installations should automatically pick up the hotfixes, and we have an SCCM deployment for applying new hotfixes to existing installations.

Our environment is quite heavily locked down. I use the Deployment Registry on our servers because I have administrator rights on them, but I don't have that on workstations, and our firewalls and proxies block us from downloading executables directly to workstations. The only place I can do this is a specific machine in our extranet (DMZ), so I need to copy the Depot there. But, as I said, it has quite limited space so I'd rather not copy the whole Depot onto it. Hence, wanting to know if there is a subset of the Depot which would suffice. The "Retrieve Hotfixes" option in Deployment Wizard does more than just download the hotfixes, it maintains a couple of XML index files as far as I can see. But I don't know exactly what it requires from the Depot to work properly, presumably not everything.

[SASKiwi]

@Nigel_Pain  - Have you tried getting an exemption to the workstation download policy for your particular use case? Its very easy to download a SAS software depot to a workstation and then pick and choose what you then copy from that to official depot locations. It's almost like you've been asked to fight in a boxing match but you have to have one arm tied behind your back 🙂 

[Nigel_Pain]

Welcome to my World, @SASKiwi, our Cyber Security folk are very risk-averse! Which I suppose is as it should be. I might try pinging TS with my question.

[SASKiwi]

@Nigel_Pain  - Well there is risk-averse and then there is not listening to common sense... If you are not able to fulfill your work responsibilities efficiently because of inflexible company policies. Can you not request extra disk space to at least deal with the original problem?

[Kurt_Bremser]

You can subset a SAS depot: https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/bicdc/9.4/biig/n03020intelplatform00install.htm 

For EG, I would always use the standalone installer; for AMO and SMC, use the subsetted depot in your software deployment system.

[Nigel_Pain]

Thanks Kurt. We do use the standalone installers for EG and AMO, and the standard install for SMC, Personal Login Manager and XML Mapper. The issue isn't with installation as such, which is working, it's about adding hot fixes to the Depot so they can be included in new installations and applied to existing installations. We can't do that directly from the server hosting the Depot so we have to copy the Depot over to a machine which does. This has quite limited storage and is shared with other folk who need to download software updates, so I would prefer not to copy over the full 29Gb of the Depot. Hence my question.

[gwootton]

I think the hot fixes downloaded can only be for the software components in the depot, so if you subset the depot only the components in the subset would get hot fixes. So if you're only trying to hot fix client applications I think those are the only ones you'd need in the depot. I would agree you should confirm with Technical Support though.