Public network distribution of software updates

摘要

Updates for an enterprise's software product are made available to user devices on-line, even when network resources of the enterprise are unavailable. Software update sets and notifications concerning the update sets may be published by an enterprise for consumption by content distribution partners of the enterprise and parties not affiliated with the enterprise. Each abstraction relating to an update, including update notifications and update sets may include a cryptographic signature for later use in authenticating the source of the abstraction. Update notifications also may include information indicative of: available update sets; and network locations at which the update sets can be accessed. Further, an update notification may be configured with a time-to-live (TTL) value indicating a value of time after which the notification expires. TTL values give the enterprise some control over the distribution of update sets by limiting the lifespan of the update notifications corresponding to the update sets.

主权项

1. A computer-readable storage device encoded with computer-executable instructions that, when executed on a processor of a computer having an update catalog and having access to at least two servers respectively having a server identifier, cause the computer to distribute updates from an update source to at least one client for application to at least one package stored by the client, by:
upon receiving an update set comprising:
at least one update of at least one package,an expiration date after which the update set is not applicable by the client,a cryptographic signature identifying the update set as having been generated by the update source, andthe server identifier of respective at least two selected servers among the at least two servers accessible to the computer:
storing the update set, andrecording the update set in the update catalog;pushing the update set to the at least two selected servers; andpushing to the at least one client an availability notification of the update set comprising the update of the at least one package, the availability notification including the server identifier of the at least two selected server distributing the update set; and upon receiving a request from a client for available updates, providing the update catalog to the client.