Getting started with self-hosted Patchman: kill malware and fix vulnerable websites

This guide is for clients on Cloud or Dedicated hosting. Once you have ordered Patchman, you need to complete your policy setup before it can start actioning events on your server.

What policies do

Policies control three things:

• What happens when a new detection is made (e.g. patch, quarantine, notify)
• Which end users are notified about detections
• Which end users can see their detections in the portal

To get started, log in to your Patchman dashboard and click on your Default policy.

Recommended policy settings

Vulnerabilities

Send a notification to your users as soon as a vulnerability is detected. Where possible, patch the vulnerability immediately. If you prefer to give users time to update their applications themselves, that is fine, but always advise them to update their software promptly.

Malware

Quarantine malware files as soon as possible to prevent abuse or further damage.

Outdated applications

Use the reminder action rather than the detection event to notify users about outdated applications. This gives them a chance to update before any automated action is taken. Bear in mind that the installed version information shown in the portal may be out of date until the next full server scan. Note that vulnerabilities in the same application may also be detected separately (see above).

Operational hours

This setting lets you restrict the hours during which policy actions are carried out. Outside those hours, detections are still recorded, but no tasks run and no emails are sent to end users - those actions are held until operational hours resume. This is useful if you want actions to happen only when your support team is available.

Customising email templates

For each event and task, you can choose which email template is used to notify the end user. Templates are configured per policy, so you can provide different messaging for different groups of users.

Each email template is inserted into a base template that defines the overall design. Every template has two parts:

• HTML template - the rich version most users see in their email client. Patchman inlines all CSS automatically when rendering, but you should still test your emails in the most popular clients, as HTML support varies widely.
• Text template - a plain-text fallback for clients that do not support HTML. When you edit an HTML template, Patchman will attempt to generate a text version automatically.

To edit the base template, click the Edit base template button in the top right of the Patchman dashboard.

For full details on email templates, special tags, and template context, see Patchman email template editing.

Finishing up

Once you have configured your events and templates, let us know so we can fully activate your account. If you need any help, please contact us.