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Cleaning Up and Adjusting Configuration for Patch Repository Folder Filling up the Hard Drive

Author: Andriy Rybalchenko Updated

Overview

You have noticed that the GFI LanGuard Repository folder is taking up a lot of space on the hard drive and are looking for a way to clean it up to reduce the space occupied.

This article describes how to manage the repository files and decrease the size of the repository folder.

 

Solution

The issue above can be due to the configuration settings for patch auto-downloading and the retention period. LanGuard has two options for auto-downloading patches:

  1. To download only the needed patches based on data collected from scans.
  2. To download all patches, regardless of whether they are required or not.

Sometimes a customer may need an archive of all patches, but since it takes a lot of space and time for downloading, most customers download only required patches.

It is possible to delete the content of the Patch Repository without any issue. However, if the items are still in the download queue, they will be re-downloaded once the services are running. This is why it is also necessary to manually purge the data from the patch auto-download database. It is generally expected that someone from the Support team performs these steps.

We do not expect all of our clients to perform these steps as they may not have an instance of Microsoft Access.
  1. Open the GFI LanGuard console and check the configured Repository path: Configuration -> Software Updates -> Patch Auto-Download -> click on Here link -> click Patch Repository tab.
  2. Close the GFI LanGuard console.
  3. Stop all the LanGuard services.
    1. Press Windows + R keys together to open the Run dialog box.
    2. Type services.msc and press the Enter key.
    3. Locate and stop the GFI LanGuard ... services.
  4. Navigate to the Repository path from step 1, by default: C:\Program Files (x86)\GFI\LanGuard 12\Repository\English .
  5. Delete any unnecessary files in this directory.
    • You can delete all the files in this directory path without issues, and these will be re-downloaded at another time if required.
  6. Navigate to C:\ProgramData\GFI\LanGuard 12.
  7. Find the toolcfg_patchautodownload.mdb file and make a copy of it somewhere else.
  8. Open the toolcfg_patchautodownload.mdb file created from the above step with Microsoft Access.
  9. Open the DownloadQueue table.
  10. Press Ctrl+A to select everything in this table and delete it.
  11. Go to File > Info > Compact and Repair.
  12. Rename the existing C:\ProgramData\GFI\LanGuard 12\toolcfg_patchautodownload.mdb to toolcfg_patchautodownload.old.
  13. Copy the edited toolcfg_patchautodownload.mdb from Steps 7-11 to the C:\ProgramData\GFI\LanGuard 12\ directory path.
  14. Reopen the GFI LanGuard LanGuard console.
  15. Navigate to Configuration > Software Updates > Patch Auto-Download. Click the Here link.
  16. Either select the radio button to download Detected patches only or turn off Enable patch auto-download.
  17. Please navigate to the Patch Repository tab and enable the option to Delete patches that have not been used for... and set it to either 6 months or 1 year.
  18. Restart all the LanGuard services stopped on step 3.

NOTE: A sample edited toolcfg_patchautodownload.mdb file is attached.

 

Testing

No additional testing is required. If the issue reappears in the future, reconsider your Patch Auto-Download configuration options or move the patch Repository to another drive.

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