Novell ZENWORKS PATCH MANAGEMENT 6.4 SP2 - SERVER, User Manual

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Signatures
Signatures recognize specific combinations of installed software in an operating system.
Vulnerabilities usually contain multiple signatures to compensate for variances within
applications. Frequently, a patch will require different executables, dynamic-link libraries,
and switches in order to run or detect the patch within different operating systems.
Fingerprints
A fingerprint can represent a unique file, folder, registry key, or other data value somewhere
within a system. Each signature can contain one or more fingerprints detecting if a patch is
present in the system.
Pre-requisites
A pre-requisite is a signature belonging to another vulnerability with its own fingerprints.
Adding a pre-requisite to a signature requires the pre-requisite be met before analyzing the
signature for the current patch. If that signature's pre-requisite is met, the agent will analyze
the fingerprints of the current signature, otherwise they will be ignored and the patch will not
be applied to the device.
Packages
The package contains the actual files used to update or install software on the system. Each
package contains the script commands for installing the package files or running the
executable that installs the patch.