Client Management Suite

I installed Altiris 7 a couple months back using the stand-alone  Installation Package.  Now I am trying to update this installation with all of the latest updates and patches. I downloaded the most recent symantec.pl.xml from the web at solutionssam website, copied it to the standalone server, and then re-pointed the Symantec Installation Manager on the standalone server.  When I clicked "Update Now" it returned saying that there were 25 updates available, however nowhere did it provide me any information of how to go about downloading just these 25 updates.

I went to a system that was on the Internet and selected all of the products for it download all of the latest files, which it did.  I then copied all of the .msi files that weren't already present into the SIM installation repository on the stand-alone server (C:\Program Files\Altiris\Symantec Installation Manager\Installs\Altiris\).  I then closed SIM and relaunched think that it would rescan the repository and see the updated files so that I could apply the updates, but it appears to be no that intelligent.  Everytime on click on an update within the "View and Install updates" dialog it keeps telling me that each of the updates require an internet connection for download, even though I've already downloaded and inserted them in the repository.  I would re-download them from the stand-alone system, but it is stand-alone with no internet access whatsoever.

I was able to parse the symantec.pl.xml to figure exactly which .msi's were for each update, but it appears as thoughthe installation command/switches for each of these files is encrypted in the XML, and if I just try to run the .msi directly it doesn't update the product.

What am I missing, it really shouldn't be this hard to update a standalone system.

Pretty sure you still need to go through SIM even though you have the files.  At some point it will say downloading but I don't think it actually will do that.  Once it sees the files it will just verify the integrity of the files and then install. 

Is it that you do not have an internet connection on that server that you are asking this?

Exactly...there is no internet connection whatsoever, and no chance of connecting it to the internet.  It also won't go to the downloading process because it attempts to connect to the internet which is impossible in my situation.

In the Symantec Installation Manager you have the option to create a Install Package.

So install the SIM on your own machine, create a installation package which you install on the stand alone server.

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=DOC1645&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1285661715482

Installation package creation

Symantec Installation Manager lets you create a self-extracting executable zip file that you can use to install the Symantec Management Platform products on a computer that is not connected to the Internet. To create the installation package, you first install Symantec Installation Manager on a computer that is connected to the Internet. You then use Symantec Installation Manager to create an installation package that includes the products you select. You use the Create installation package option on the Installed Products page to create the package. When you run the installation package, it installs Symantec Installation Manager and then lets you install the products that are included in the package.

See the attached screenshot

It sounds like you're doing things along the right lines so I'm not quite sure what's missing,  we have 6 or 7 NS's without internet access and update them in a method very similar to yours.  Closing and re-opening SIM does scan for the installation files.  

Since you have so many updates, can you confirm that you are you using the latest version of SIM?

I did that and it worked great for the initial install, but now I'm trying to update that server which seems to be all but impossible.  I can find out what products need updates from sneakerneting the symantec.pl.xml.zip on to the standalone box, but then there it doesn't give a link to how one would get the updates, nor does it tell you what files are needed for each update.  You can figure out what some of the files are by digging through the 24MB XML file, but the links listed in the XML are not publics links, so the sources cannot be downloaded.  The only option I've found is to redownload each of the products, create a new installation package, extract the files from the exe using 7zip, and then sneakernet these files across also. However even once this done SIM either still doesn't want to install the updates, or it crashes once the process is started.

Haven't had to do this myself, but heres a whitepaper I got from our SE a little while back that seems to cover what your after.

Attachment(s)

SIM_UpdatingIsolatedEnvironments_Whitepaper_05042010_0.pdf   463 KB 1 version