Managing Software Patches on the Solaris 10 OS

jacky.lee

Managing Software Patches on the Solaris 10 OS
The administration of patches involves installing or removing Solaris OS patches from a running Solaris OS.
A patch contains a collection of files and directories. This collection replaces existing files and directories that prevent proper execution of the
software
. Some patches contain product enhancements.
The Solaris OS patch types include:

• Standard patches - Patches that fix specific problems with the Solaris OS and other
  Sun hardware
  and software products.
  
• Recommended patches - Solaris OS patches that fix problems that might occur on a large percentage of systems. These include recommended
  security patches
  .
  
• Firmware and BIOS (Sun x86/x64 systems) patches.
  
• Patch clusters - A group of standard, recommended, or security patches that have been bundled into a single archive for easy downloading and installation.

A patch is distributed as a directory that is identified by a unique number. The number assigned to a patch includes the patch base code first, a hyphen, and a number that represents the patch revision number. For example, a patch directory named 116299-16, indicates that 116299 is the patch number and 16 is the revision number.
The
Solaris 10 OS
patches are in zip (compressed) format, for example, 116299-16.zip.
Accessing Patch Documents
Prior to installing patches on your system, you should review the patch documents available through the
World Wide Web
, patch update CD-ROMs, or anonymous FTP.
To access patch documents through the World Wide Web, go to:
   
http://sunsolve.sun.com
       
Click Worldwide for a list of alternative sites by geographic areas.
Anonymous FTP access to patch documents is available from sunsolve.sun.com. Use your complete email address as a password. After the connection is complete, the publicly available patch documents are located in the /patchroot/all_unsigned and the /patchroot/all_signed directories.
The table shows important summary documents that list all recommended patches for the Solaris OS.
Patch Documents and Files
Patch Document
Contents
10_x86_patch_report
A summary of all patches for the Solaris 10 OS release
10_x86_Recommended.README
Instructions for how to install the recommended patch cluster for the Solaris 10 OS, as well as any important notes or warnings, special installation instructions, and usually a note to reboot the
system
When you are reviewing patch documentation, start with the Patch Report document first. This report is divided into categories that include information about all patches for a Solaris OS release.
Note: Not all patches available from
Sun Microsystems
must be installed. Care should be taken to study the README documents for each patch, and then a decision made on each patch before it is applied to a system.
Before installing operating system patches, you should know about patches that have been previously installed on a system.
The showrev command and the patchadd command provide useful information about currently installed patches.
# showrev -p
Patch: 116299-08 Obsoletes: Requires: Incompatibles:
Packages: SUNWxsrt SUNWjaxp SUNWxrgrt SUNWxrpcrt
. . .
# patchadd -p
Patch: 116299-08 Obsoletes: Requires: Incompatibles:
Packages: SUNWxsrt SUNWjaxp SUNWxrgrt SUNWxrpcrt
. . .
Note: Command output is the same for the patchadd -p and showrev -p commands, however, the patchadd command takes longer to display patch information. The showrev command is a binary, and the patchadd command is a script.
Historical information about all patches that are currently installed on a system and that can be uninstalled using the patchrm command is stored in the /var/sadm/patch directory.
The following command lists the contents of the /var/sadm/patch directory.
# ls /var/sadm/patch
116299-08 116299-16 116303-02
Caution: Deleting files from the /var/sadm directory to make more space is a Solution Center call generator. The only way to correct the problems that occur is to restore the
deleted files
from backup tapes or to reload the Solaris OS.
Note: It is important to ensure that sufficient space has been allocated for the /var
file system
. There must be sufficient space for the /var/sadm directory to grow as new software packages and patches are installed on the system.
Sun customers who have a maintenance contract have access to the SunSolveTM program’s database of patches and patch information, technical white papers, the Symptom and Resolution database, and more. These are available using the World Wide Web.
Sun customers without maintenance contracts have access to a subset of the patches available through the SunSolve program. These patches are available at no charge and include important security and bug fix patches.
To access patches through the World Wide Web, use the following Universal Resource Locators (URLs):
http://sunsolve.sun.com
- United States
http://sunsolve.sun.com.au
- Australia
http://sunsolve.sun.fr
- France
http://sunsolve.sun.de
- Germany
http://sunsolve.sun.co.jp
- Japan
http://sunsolve.sun.se
- Sweden
http://sunsolve.sun.ch
- Switzerland
http://sunsolve.sun.co.uk
- United Kingdom
The comprehensive set of patches and patch information is available to contract customers through the button labeled Login. The customer’s assigned SunService program password is required to access this database.
To access patches using FTP, use the ftp command to connect to:
    sunsolve.sun.com
The ftp utility has many commands; however, only a few are necessary for moving files from system to system. You can locate and copy patches to the local system with a few basic FTP commands.
The following example shows the procedure for changing to the /var/tmp directory on the local system, connecting to the remote FTP site, locating a patch and its README file in the /pub/patches directory, and transferring both files to the local system’s directory.
Note: The default mode for an ftp connection is binary mode in Solaris 10 OS. The default mode for an ftp connection in Solaris 8 or earlier versions is American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) mode. You use the bin command to set the FTP transfer mode to binary mode to transfer binary, image, or a non-text files in these earlier versions of the OS.
# cd /var/tmp
# ftp sunsolve.sun.com
Connected to sunsolve.sun.com.
220-
220-Welcome to the SunSolve Online
FTP server
.
220-
220-Public users may log in as anonymous.
220-
220-Contract customers should use the following 2-tier login procedure:
220-
220-At the 1st login prompt: sunsolve
220-             passwd: sunmicro
220-
220-At the 2nd login prompt: /
220-example:  myssID/mypasswd
220-
220-Public users may log in as anonymous; contract customers
220-should use the standard sunsolve login and password,
220-followed by their SunSolve account/password when prompted.
220-
220-
220 sunsolve7 FTP server (Version wu-2.6.2(25) Mon Aug 25 02:00:22 MDT 2003) ready.
Name (sunsolve:usera): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password:yourpassword
230-Please read the file README
230-  it was last modified on Mon Aug 26 09:27:12 2002 - 784 days ago
230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
ftp> cd /patchroot/reports
ftp> get 10_x86_patch_report
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 10_x86_patch_report (8187 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: 10_x86_patch_report remote: 10_x86_patch_report
8432 bytes received in 4.9 seconds (1.7 Kbytes/s)
ftp> cd /patchroot/current_unsigned
ftp> mget 116299*
mget 116299-16.zip? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 116299-16.zip (95744 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: 116299-16.zip remote: 116299-16.zip
96052 bytes received in 1 seconds (91 Kbytes/s)
mget 116299.readme? y
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for 116299.readme (2198 bytes).
226 Transfer complete.
local: 116299.readme remote: 116299.readme
2274 bytes received in 0.039 seconds (57 Kbytes/s)
ftp> bye
Note: To disable interactive prompting during multiple (mget) file transfers, you can begin a session using ftp -i sitename or use the prompt command at the ftp> prompt.
When patches are downloaded to the local system, you must place the patches in a temporary directory to prepare them for installation. The directory commonly used is the /var/tmp directory.
One of the common reasons for patch installation failure is directory permission or ownership problems. The /var/tmp directory is open to all and eliminates any of these types of problems.
The Solaris 7, Solaris 8, Solaris 9, and Solaris 10 OS patches are in zip format, for example, 116299-16.zip.
Use the unzip command to unpack the patch files.
# /usr/bin/unzip 116299-16.zip
Earlier versions of the Solaris OS used compressed tar files in a tar.Z format, for example, 101010-01.tar.Z.
Use the zcat command to uncompress the patch files and the tar command to create the patch directories.
# /usr/bin/zcat 116299-16.tar.Z | tar xvf -
Patch Contents
The image shows the contents of a patch directory after it is extracted from the zip file.



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