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https://github.com/furlongm/patchman

Patchman is a Linux Patch Status Monitoring System
https://github.com/furlongm/patchman

centos debian django django-application errata kernel linux mirror monitoring package package-management package-manager-tool patch patch-management patchman patchman-client patchman-server repository

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Patchman is a Linux Patch Status Monitoring System

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README 

          
# Patchman



## Summary



Patchman is a Django-based patch status monitoring tool for linux systems.

Patchman provides a web interface for monitoring the package updates available

for linux hosts.



[![](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/furlongm/patchman/gh-pages/screenshots/dashboard.png)](https://github.com/furlongm/patchman/tree/gh-pages/screenshots)



## How does Patchman work?



Patchman clients send a list of installed packages and enabled repositories to

the Patchman server. The Patchman server updates its package list for each

repository and determines which hosts require updates, and whether those updates

are normal or security updates. The web interface also gives information on

potential issues, such as installed packages that are not from any repository.



Hosts, packages, repositories and operating systems can all be filtered. For

example, it is possible to find out which hosts have a certain version of a

package installed, and which repository it comes from.



Patchman does not install update packages on hosts, it determines and displays

what updates are available for each host.



`yum`, `apt` and `zypper` plugins can send reports to the Patchman server every

time packages are installed or removed on a host.



## Installation



See [the installation guide](https://github.com/furlongm/patchman/blob/main/INSTALL.md)

for installation options.



## Usage



The web interface contains a dashboard with items that need attention, and

various pages to manipulate and view hosts, repositories and mirrors, packages,

operating system releases and variants, reports, errata and CVEs.



To populate the database, simply run the client on some hosts:



```shell

$ patchman-client -s http://patchman.example.com

```



This should provide some initial data to work with.



On the server, the `patchman` command line utility can be used to run certain

maintenance tasks, e.g. processing the reports sent from hosts, downloading

repository update information from the web. Run `patchman -h` for a rundown of

the usage:



```shell

$ sbin/patchman -h

usage: patchman [-h] [-f] [-q] [-r] [-R REPO] [-lr] [-lh] [-dh] [-u] [-A] [-shro | -uhro] [-sdns | -udns] [-H HOST] [-p] [-c] [-d] [-rd] [-n] [-a] [-D hostA hostB] [-e] [-E ERRATUM_TYPE] [-v] [--cve CVE] [--fetch-nist-data]



Patchman CLI tool



options:

  -h, --help            show this help message and exit

  -f, --force           Ignore stored checksums and force-refresh all Mirrors

  -q, --quiet           Quiet mode (e.g. for cronjobs)

  -r, --refresh-repos   Refresh Repositories

  -R REPO, --repo REPO  Only perform action on a specific Repository (repo_id)

  -lr, --list-repos     List all Repositories

  -lh, --list-hosts     List all Hosts

  -dh, --delete-hosts   Delete hosts, requires -H, matches substring patterns

  -u, --host-updates    Find Host updates

  -A, --host-updates-alt

                        Find Host updates (alternative algorithm that may be faster when there are many homogeneous hosts)

  -shro, --set-host-repos-only

                        Set host_repos_only, requires -H, matches substring patterns

  -uhro, --unset-host-repos-only

                        Unset host_repos_only, requires -H, matches substring patterns

  -sdns, --set-check-dns

                        Set check_dns, requires -H, matches substring patterns

  -udns, --unset-check-dns

                        Unset check_dns, requires -H, matches substring patterns

  -H HOST, --host HOST  Only perform action on a specific Host (fqdn)

  -p, --process-reports

                        Process pending Reports

  -c, --clean-reports   Remove all but the last three Reports

  -d, --dbcheck         Perform some sanity checks and clean unused db entries

  -rd, --remove-duplicates

                        Remove duplicates during dbcheck - this may take some time

  -n, --dns-checks      Perform reverse DNS checks if enabled for that Host

  -a, --all             Convenience flag for -r -A -p -c -d -n -e

  -D hostA hostB, --diff hostA hostB

                        Show differences between two Hosts in diff-like output

  -e, --update-errata   Update Errata

  -E ERRATUM_TYPE, --erratum-type ERRATUM_TYPE

                        Only update the specified Erratum type (e.g. `yum`, `ubuntu`, `arch`)

  -v, --update-cves     Update CVEs from https://cve.org

  --cve CVE             Only update the specified CVE (e.g. CVE-2024-1234)

  --fetch-nist-data, -nd

                        Fetch NIST CVE data in addition to MITRE data (rate-limited to 1 API call every 6 seconds)

```



### Client dependencies



The client dependencies are kept to a minimum. `rpm` and `dpkg` are

required to report packages, `yum`, `dnf`, `zypper` and/or `apt` are required

to report repositories. These packages are normally installed by default on

most systems. `which`, `mktemp`, `flock` and `curl` are also required.



For Protocol 2 (JSON-based reports), `jq` is required. If `jq` is not available,

the client will automatically fall back to Protocol 1 (text-based reports).



deb-based OS's do not always change the kernel version when a kernel update is

installed, so the `update-notifier-common` package can optionally be installed

to enable this functionality. rpm-based OS's can tell if a reboot is required

to install a new kernel by looking at `uname -r` and comparing it to the

highest installed kernel version, so no extra packages are required on those

OS's.



## Concepts



The default settings will be fine for most people but depending on your setup,

there may be some initial work required to logically organise the data sent in

the host reports. The following explanations may help in this case.



There are a number of basic objects: Hosts, Repositories and Mirrors, Packages,

Operating Systems Releases and Variants, Reports and Errata.



### Host

A Host is a single host, e.g. test-host-01.example.com.



### Operating System Releases and Variants

A Host runs an Operating System Release, e.g. Rocky 10, Debian 13,

Ubuntu 24.04. The particular version running is called a Operating System

Variant. e.g. Debian 13.1, Ubuntu 24.04.4 and Variants are linked to a

Release. For some OS's like Arch Linux, there are no Variants.



### Package

A Package is a package that is either installed on a Host, or is available to

download from a Repository mirror, e.g. `strace-4.8-11.el10.x86_64`,

`grub2-tools-2.02-0.34.el10.rocky.x86_64`, etc.



### Mirror

A Mirror is a collection of Packages available on the web, e.g. a `yum` or

`apt` repo.



### Repository

A Repository is a collection of Mirrors. Typically all the Mirrors will contain

the same Packages. For Red Hat-based Hosts, Repositories automatically link

their Mirrors together. For Debian-based hosts, you may need to link all

Mirrors that form a Repository using the web interface. This may reduce the

time required to find updates. Repositories can be marked as being security or

non-security. This makes most sense with Debian and Ubuntu repositories where

security updates are delivered via security repositories. For rpm security

updates, see the Erratum section below.



Repositories can be associated with an OS Release, or with the Host itself. If

the `use_host_repos` variable is set to True for a Host, then updates are found

by looking only at the Repositories that belong to that Host. This is the

default behaviour.



If `use_host_repos` is set to False, the update-finding process looks at the

OS Release that the Hosts Operating System Variant is associated with, and

uses that Releases Repositories to determine the applicable updates. This is

useful in environments where many hosts are homogeneous.



### Report

Hosts create Reports using `patchman-client`. This Report is sent to the

Patchman server. The Report contains the Hosts running kernel, Operating System,

installed Packages and enabled Repositories. The Patchman server processes the

Report records the information contained therein.



### Erratum

Errata for many OS's can downloaded by the patchman server. These Errata are

parsed and stored in the database. If a PackageUpdate contains a package that

is a security update in an Erratum, then that update is marked as being a

security update. CVE and CVSS data is used to complement this information.