Symantec Management Platform (Notification Server)

Hi All,

HF3 has broken our SMP 7.5 environment.

We have single policies that deploy multiple software items.

In a lot of instances these policies contain an x86 and x64 version.  priot to 7.5 HF3, a false applicability rule simply prevented the one inapplicable software product from installing.

Now, in 7.5 HF3, if ANY applicability rule fires as false the entire policy is flagged as "Not Applicable".

This is a very bad backwards step from HF2.

How to reproduce this:

Create a policy that delivers both an x86 and x64 software package.

Add the "32 bit platform rule" and "64 bit platform" applicability rules respectively.

Create a policy that delivers both pieces of software.

Assign the policy to a client and test

Some example screenshots for 7-zip (x86) and 7-zip (x64) in the same policy:

Yes, I know it's already installed - The Agent should show a status of Compliant - instead it shows Not Applicable

This is impacting our Software Delivery Policies, and potentially our Patch Management capability.

You get the same result when both detection rules return Not detected.

Message in agent log:

Set compliance status for policy {FD3A498D-CF28-4A70-879C-A20307251C0E} to status 6

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 7/02/2014 7:47:57 PM, Tick Count: 727744, Host Name: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Size: 329 B

Process: AeXNSAgent.exe (3940), Thread ID: 7032, Module: smfagent.dll

Priority: 4, Source: CDeliveryPolicy::RunJobQueue()

File: a.log

A support case has been logged with Symantec Support.  Hope they can fix this ASAP.

To get this to work in 7.1 I always had to remember to set the Results based actions Advanced option for the Software Resource in the Policy to Upon failure: Continue.

Otherwise either the 32 bit or 64 bit version coming up as "Not Applicable" would stop the whole policy.

Has HF3 reset the "Upon failure:" settings?

Hi andykn101.

We 've had this setting configured as the default "Abort" since installing 7.1 SP2 and upgrading to 7.5, HF1, HF2 and HF3.

We've never experience issues with inapplicable software flagging the policy as Not applicable or stopping other applicable items within the policy from executing - Until SMFAgent.dll build 7.5.1673.

I don't really see myself rolling through several hundred policies with several thousand installation options (when you include dependencies) to modify this setting either...

Not sure if I'd actually trust the compliance status if the execution failed and the policy shows "Compliant" due to the Continue state...

Upon digging a little further - an applicability rule that evaluates as false aborted further processing on the SWDAdvertisement associated with the rule.

With HF3, when an applicability rule evaluates as FALSE it aborts the policy instead of just the SWDAdvertisement.

I'll have to check next week but my experience is that an Applicability Rule not met will stop processing of the whole Managed Software Delivery Policy unless the Upon failure: setting is changed from the default of Abort. Because I forget occasionally and the Policy will stop inexplicably.