Summary
Question
In a Server Automation (SA) environment, actions against windows 2012R2 managed servers suddenly began either taking much longer or timed out altogether. When analyzed, it was found that the SA utility "bs_software" was the culprit. The command run directly on the managed servers themselves was also impacted by this increase in run time, sometimes taking up to fifty minutes to complete.
To check how bs_software is responding, log onto a Windows 2012R2 server managed by SA, and (as administrator) run the command
C:\Program Files\Opsware\agent\pylibs\cog\bs_software.bat
This should only take a few minutes at most to complete.
Answer
The problem was originally noticed after bios updates and fixes for "spectre_v2" were made on the PCs. To address this, the official hotfix involving the file opswpatchlib.zip has been released on the MicroFocus MarketPlace Portal (MPP)
This hotfix (currently “OPSWWinPatchDB-916-30c.1.141.4094-20180628.zip”) fixes problems with the performance of the bs_Software and the bios changes made to the 2012R2 servers. The hotfix can be accessed from MPP url https://marketplace.microfocus.com/itom/content/ms-patch-supplement-server-automation-2, under the heading "MS Patch Supplement for Server Automation". Download the latest version of the file (look at the filename being downloaded.. all versions that have a date in the filename that is 20180628 or later will have the fix).
The fix provides a new copy of the opswpatchlib.zip file, which contains an updated bs_software command. To install it in a SA environment, do the following...
1.) Download and copy OPSWWinPatchDB-<version/date>.zip to the primary SA core/slice
2.) Use the "import_win_patch_bundle" command to import the fix into the SA DB (only need to run this command once per SA mesh/environment)
# /opt/opsware/mm_wordbot/util/import_win_patch_bundle --force --bundle OPSWWinPatchDB-<versions/date>.zip
Once this command is finished, new copies of bs_software will be downloaded automatically to all Windows managed servers when the bs_software script is run from/requested by the SA core.
In addition to the hotfix, its also been seen that disabling 8.3 shortnames within both the Windows 2012R2 OS and the package names located in the c:\windows\servicing directory can help with bs_software's performance. This can be done via the following commands (run on the Windows 2012R2 servers).
fsutil.exe behavior set disable8dot3 1
fsutil.exe 8dot3name strip c:\windows\servicing\packages
For more information on what these commands do, see