Updating Open Mobile

Open Mobile includes features for updating the client software, the user's profile, and the user's network directory.

Upon connecting to the Internet by Wi-Fi or Ethernet, Open Mobile will check for any client software updates. The user is then prompted to download any available update. If a software update is available, and the user refuses it, no further prompt will be displayed for 8 hours (or until the next re-start of the system).

If a download fails for any reason (such as an interrupted connection), the client will attempt to resume the download 24 hours after the failure, or upon re-start of the user's system.

All updates to Open Mobile are initiated from the client outbound. No update server will ever initiate communication to a client.

Software update is only available for Open Mobile 1.4.1 and later, and can only be used to update to versions 1.4.3 or 2.x.

After a software update, new files will be located in the folder /Program Data/NGC/Software Update on the end user's system.

Separately from software update, Open Mobile dynamically updates a user's profile, and network directory. Every time it establishes or inherits an Internet connection, Open Mobile performs the following update activities:

• Downloads and installs any changes or updates to the iPass network directory.
• Downloads and applies any updates to the currently installed profile.
• Uploads connection success information to the Open Mobile Portal, where it can be viewed in reports.

If a connection is established for longer than 24 hours, Open Mobile will automatically perform these updates every 24 hours after the initial connection is made. Updates of profiles and directories are made through HTTP/HTTPS requests to the Open Mobile Update Server.

The update process is accomplished in two steps:

1. Open Mobile checks for the presence of any updates by invoking Update services at this URL: http://om-updater.ipass.com.
2. Updates are retrieved by Open Mobile from this URL: https://om-download.ipass.com.

Open Mobile includes a manual update feature to update profiles and network directories. To perform a manual update, do one of the following:

• On the Open Mobile UI, click the down arrow next to Help. Select Update from the drop-down menu, or,
• Right-click the Open Mobile icon in the system tray and select Update.

Open Mobile utilizes Internet Explorer proxy settings when attempting to perform updates. If a user is in an area where a proxy is not available, updates should still be successful.

Authenticated proxy support is only available if using NTLM for authentication.

Authenticated proxy support for an Open Mobile profile can be configured on the Open Mobile Portal. The authentication can make use of Windows domain or proxy credentials.

Using a Profile-Only ZIP archive, which you can create on the Open Mobile Portal, you can import a profile into an existing local Open Mobile installation.

Administrator privileges are not required for this operation, since the profile will be applied by the iPlatform service, which runs in the system context (and therefore, has system context capabilities).

Note that importing a profile will not deploy to an entire user base, but must be performed locally on each installation where the profile will be imported.

For instructions on creating a profile archive, see the Open Mobile Portal Administrator's Guide.

Importing a profile makes use of the Open Mobile EPCmd command line utility.

To import a profile to an existing Open Mobile installation:

1. Create the profile-only archive on the Open Mobile Portal.
2. Download the archive to a transferrable medium or local shared drive.
3. On the machine where the profile is to be imported, open a command prompt.
4. Switch to the folder \Program Files\iPass\Open Mobile\omsi.
5. Type: epcmd ipass.softwaremanager.applynewprofile /overwrite “<ZIP File>”, where <ZIP File> is the full pathname to your ZIP archive, in quotes. The new profile will overwrite the settings of the old profile.
6. Exit the command prompt.

These steps are compatible with any popular enterprise deployment system.

The active profile can be verified by checking the registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\OM\MobilityClientConfig.

The value of this key is the name of the current active profile.

Go to: Open Mobile for Windows Help