Patch Link
PatchLink is another Cisco partner that provides remediation features to the NAC solution. PatchLink Quarantine for NAC is an add-on feature to the PatchLink Update server, and it works very similarly to the Altiris solution. An agent is installed on the client machine that talks to CTA through a posture plug-in. The PatchLink Update server can then discover end-user machines connected to the network. You can also use the Agent Management Utility of the PatchLink Update server to install and remove PatchLink agents on end-user machines.
The installation and configuration documentation of PatchLink Update server and agents are publicly available on PatchLink's website at www.patchlink.com/support/ documentation.html.
Figure 12-3 illustrates how the PatchLink Agent and Posture Plug-in communicate with CTA and the Windows Registry.
Figure 12-3 PatchLink Agent
Figure 12-3 illustrates how the PatchLink Agent and Posture Plug-in communicate with CTA and the Windows Registry.
The PatchLink Agent communicates with CTA via the Posture Plug-in. It also reads and updates Windows Registry entries.
Similar to Altiris, the PatchLink Quarantine attributes need to be installed on Cisco Secure ACS server before you configure the PatchLink Update server as an external remediation server. In this case, PatchLink provides an installation package called PatchLink Quarantine ACS.msi. When executing this file on the Cisco Secure ACS server, all necessary PatchLink attributes are installed, and the csauth, cslog, and csadmin services are restarted.
NOTE The Cisco Secure ACS configuration steps are exactly the same as the steps mentioned in the previous section.
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