Managing Signed Patches by Using Solaris Patch Management Tools (Tasks)

This chapter provides instructions for managing signed patches by using Solaris patch management tools. See these sections:

• Using Solaris Patch Management Tools

• Solaris Patch Management Tool Caveats

• Downloading and Installing the Patch Management Tools (Task Map)

• Selecting the Best Method for Applying Signed Patches

• Downloading and Applying Signed Patches to a Solaris System (Task Map)

• Troubleshooting Signed Patch Problems (Task Map)

For information about how to manage signed patches without Solaris patch management tools, see Appendix A, Managing Signed Patches Without Solaris Patch Management Tools (Tasks).

See Chapter 1, Managing Signed Patches (Overview) for overview information about using signed patches. For information about troubleshooting problems with the patch management tools, see the Signed Patches Release Notes for PatchPro 2.2.

Using Solaris Patch Management Tools

Patch Manager Base 1.0.1 and PatchPro 2.2 are tools that manage signed patches on Solaris systems. Patch Manager Base 1.0.1 runs on Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, and Solaris 8 systems. PatchPro 2.2 runs on Solaris 9 systems. These tools also run on both SPARC™ and x86 hardware.

By using the patch management tools, you can do the following:

• Analyze a Solaris system to determine the recommended patches.

  If your system includes hardware products from Sun Network Storage, the patch management tools can recommend firmware patches associated with that hardware. You might need to identify that hardware manually. See How to Identify the Hardware on Your System.

• Download the recommended patches from Sun to a local system.

• Apply the recommended patches to a local system.

• Remove patches from a local system.

Solaris Patch Management Tool Caveats

Be aware of these key points when using the Solaris patch management tools:

• For Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, or Solaris 8 only - If you have a previous version of the PatchPro software on your system, the older version will be upgraded when Solaris Patch Manager Base 1.0.1 is installed.

• The digital signature for signed patches is verified when the patches are downloaded with the smpatch download command.

  However, on a Solaris 9 system, no patch signature validation message is displayed during the patch download, even if the patch signature is successfully verified. If the patch signature verification fails, you will know because the patch is not downloaded to your system.

• For Solaris 9 only - The smpatch command prompts you for authentication information if you do not specify the information in the command line.

  For example, you can specify authentication information to the smpatch command using the following syntax:

  # smpatch add -p mypassword -u root -- -i patch-ID

  
  

  The smpatch subcommands are separated from the authentication options and arguments by --. The smpatch subcommands are add, analyze, download, remove, and update. Support for the update subcommand began with the Solaris 9 4/03 release.

  Or, you can let the smpatch command prompt you for the authentication information.

  # /usr/sadm/bin/smpatch add -i patch-ID Authenticating as user: root Type /? for help, pressing <enter> accepts the default denoted by [ ] Please enter a string value for: password :: Loading Tool: com.sun.admin.patchmgr.cli.PatchMgrCli from starbug Login to starbug as user root was successful. Download of com.sun.admin.patchmgr.cli.PatchMgrCli from starbug was successful.

  
  

• Use the /opt/SUNWppro/bin/uninstallpatchpro script if you need to uninstall PatchPro 2.2.

Downloading and Installing the Patch Management Tools (Task Map)

Use this task map to identify the tasks that must be completed before you can apply signed patches to your system. Notice that you can install or upgrade a patch management tool in interactive mode or in non-interactive mode. Perform the tasks in the order shown.

How to Verify Package Requirements for Patch Management Tools

1. Verify that the appropriate Solaris cluster and Solaris packages are installed on your system.

   • For the Solaris 2.6 release, verify that these packages are present:

     # pkginfo | grep SUNWmfrun system SUNWmfrun Motif RunTime Kit # pkginfo | grep SUNWlibC system SUNWlibC Sun Workshop Compilers Bundled libC # pkginfo | grep SUNWxcu4 system SUNWxcu4 XCU4 Utilities

     
     

   • For the Solaris 7 or Solaris 8 release, verify that these packages are present:

     # pkginfo | grep SUNWmfrun system SUNWmfrun Motif RunTime Kit # pkginfo | grep SUNWlibC system SUNWlibC Sun Workshop Compilers Bundled libC

     
     

   • For the Solaris 9 release, verify that one of these Solaris clusters is present by checking the /var/sadm/system/admin/CLUSTER file:

     • SUNWCprog

     • SUNWCall

     • SUNWCXall

2. If the pkginfo commands do not return any output, you must install the required packages.