Overview

Emergency Plans (also referred to as Zero-Day Remediation) are important for rolling out fast, critical updates outside of your regular patching cycle. 

JetPatch enables users to do this through Emergency Remediation Plans without having to change any of the existing settings in the environment.

The way this works is by creating a one-time maintenance schedule specifically for the emergency plan. After the plan is completed, endpoints automatically go back to their original patching settings - no changes required.

When to Use an Emergency Remediation Plan

From time to time, you may want to patch your environment outside of your regular patching cycle due to:

1. Fix a zero-day vulnerability.
2. Deploy a critical patch for your environment.
3. Deploy a patch that failed in the previous patching cycle.
4. Meet an expected SLA.

Regular vs. Emergency Remediation Plan

How to Configure an Emergency Remediation Plan

Follow the steps below to set up a successful emergency remediation plan.

Step 1: Create a Maintenance Schedule

JetPatch will execute the Remediation Plan on a predefined Maintenance Schedule. The first step is to create a one-time maintenance schedule specifically for this emergency plan.

Navigate to System → Maintenance Schedules and select Create Maintenance Schedule.

1. Give the schedule a Name, Description, and Timezone, then click Save.
2. Select Add Schedule Entry and fill in the following:
   • Give the entry a Name.
   • Repeat Type: Select Do Not Repeat for a non-recurring, one-time maintenance schedule.
   • Set the start and end time for the maintenance window (e.g., start at 8:00 PM today, end at 4:00 AM tomorrow).
3. Save the entry, then save the schedule.

Step 2: Find the Patch in the Patch Catalog

Navigate to Patches → Patch Catalog.

1. Locate the zero-day patch or patches you want to remediate.
2. Use the available filters to narrow down to the relevant patches (e.g., filter by Endpoint Group).
3. Select the patch(es) and click Create Remediation Plan.

Step 3: Create the Emergency Remediation Plan

In the first section of the Remediation Plan creation:

1. Provide a Name and Description for the plan.
2. At the bottom of the form, check the “Emergency Remediation Plan” checkbox. This will add the Emergency icon to the title of the Remediation Plan and unlock the Emergency Maintenance Schedule selection.
3. Click Save and Continue.

Step 4: Approve Patches and Assign the Emergency Maintenance Schedule

1. Select the patch or patches to include, then click Bulk Install to set the action to Install for all vulnerabilities.
2. Click Save and Continue.
3. Select the Endpoint Group that needs to be patched.
4. In the Emergency Maintenance column, click on the relevant Endpoint Group and choose the one-time Maintenance Schedule created in Step 1.
5. Click Save and Continue.

Step 5: Select Workflows and Activate

1. Select the appropriate Workflows for the remediation plan (e.g., Linux Reboot to reboot machines after patching).
2. Click Save and Activate. The plan will move to Pending status on the Remediation Plans dashboard.

The plan will sit in Pending until the one-time maintenance window arrives, at which point it will begin the patching process automatically.

Maintenance Window Behavior in Emergency Remediation Plans

When selecting a Maintenance Window for an Emergency Remediation Plan, it is important to understand its impact:

• In an Emergency Remediation Plan, the system ignores the Maintenance Window configured individually for each endpoint.
• Instead, remediation actions will be executed for all endpoints in the selected Endpoint Group according to the Maintenance Window defined in the Remediation Plan itself.
• This behavior ensures a consistent and controlled execution window for all endpoints participating in the emergency remediation process.

Summary

Emergency Remediation Plans allow users to:

• Choose a one-time maintenance window for the plan.
• Patch endpoints immediately without changing any existing patching configurations.

Automatically return endpoints to their original settings once the plan is complete.