21 Patching Solaris Hosts

Solaris Host Patching is a feature in Enterprise Manager Grid Control that helps in keeping the machines in an enterprise updated with security fixes and critical bug fixes, especially in a data centre or a server farm.

This feature support in Enterprise Manager Grid Control enables you to patch Solaris hosts.

This chapter explains how you can patch Solaris hosts. In particular, this chapter covers the following:

Getting Started
Deployment Procedures
Supported Releases
Patching Solaris Hosts

Getting Started

This section helps you get started with this chapter by providing an overview of the steps involved in patching Solaris hosts. Consider this section to be a documentation map to understand the sequence of actions you must perform to successfully patch Solaris hosts. Click the reference links provided against the steps to reach the relevant sections that provide more information.

Table 21-1 Getting Started with Patching Solaris Hosts

Step	Description	Reference Links
	Understanding the Deployment Procedure Understand the Deployment Procedure that is offered by Enterprise Manager Grid Control for patching Solaris hosts.	To learn about the Deployment Procedure, see Deployment Procedures.
	Knowing About The Supported Releases Know what releases of Solaris are supported by the Deployment Procedure.	To learn about the releases supported by the Deployment Procedure, see Supported Releases.
	Understanding the Deployment Phases The Deployment Procedure consists of a series of interview screens that take you through the different deployment phases and capture the required information. Understand the different phases involved and know what information is captured in each phase.	To learn about the deployment phases involved in patching Solaris hosts, see Deployment Phases.
	Meeting the Prerequisites Before you run any Deployment Procedure, you must meet the prerequisites, such as setting up of the patching environment, applying mandatory patches, setting up of Oracle Software Library.	To learn about the prerequisites for patching Solaris hosts, see Prerequisites.
	Running the Deployment Procedure Run the Deployment Procedure to successfully patch Solaris hosts.	To patch Solaris hosts, follow the steps explained in Patching Procedure.

Deployment Procedures

Enterprise Manager Grid Control provides the following Deployment Procedures for Solaris patching:

Patch Solaris Hosts

This deployment procedure allows you to patch Solaris hosts. The steps to run this deployment procedure is specified in the next section.

Supported Releases

Following are the releases supported for Solaris patching:

Solaris 8 and higher

Patching Solaris Hosts

This section explains how you can patch Solaris hosts. This section covers the following:

Deployment Phases
Prerequisites
Patching Procedure

Deployment Phases

The following table describes the different phases involved in this Deployment Procedure:

Table 21-2 Deployment Phases for Patching Solaris Hosts

Phase	Description
	Package Repository Allows you to select the patchdiag.xref file and the type of patches.
	Select Updates Allows you to select the packages to be updated.
	Select Hosts Allows you to select the targets to be updated.
	Credentials Allows you to enter the credentials for the patching operation.
	Pre/Post Scripts Allows you to specify any scripts to be run before and after the patching job.
	Schedule Allows you to specify the schedule for the patching job.
	Review Allows you to review the information and submit the patching job.

Prerequisites

Before running the deployment procedure, ensure that you meet the following requirements:

Ensure that you meet the prerequisites described in the following sections:
- Mandatory Infrastructure Requirements for Provisioning and Patching
- Optional Infrastructure Requirements
Software Library must be configured in OMS.
All the target machines must have sudo enabled for the patch user.

Patching Procedure

Follow these steps to patch Solaris hosts using deployment procedures:

In the Deployments tab, click Patching through Deployment Procedures. Select Patch Solaris Hosts and click Schedule Deployment.
In the Package Repository page, specify the Solaris package repository source.

You can choose to get the updates from the following locations:
- Update from SUN Server - Connect to the SUN server and download the Solaris updates from this Web site.
- Update from Local Server - set up a repository on a local server. To do this, you will require a Sun Spectrum contract account. Refer to the Sun web site for more details.
Depending on the type of application policy you select, you can either just stage the updates (and not apply them automatically), or choose to stage and apply the updates when the deployment procedure is executed.

To simply stage the updates and not apply, select Stage Updates.

To stage and apply the updates, select Apply Updates.

The patches when applied will have metadata (updates) that are classified as the following types:
- Standard: Updates of this type will take effect as soon as they are applied. The effects of this patch are visible as soon as it is applied, unless the application being patched is running while the patch is applied.
- Reboot-After: Updates of this type will take effect only after a reboot.
- Reconfigure-After: Updates of this type will take effect only after the application is reconfigured.
- Reboot-Immediate: If you select updates of this type, the selected hosts must be restarted immediately after the patch is applied.
- Reconfigure-Immediate: If you select updates of this type, the selected hosts must be reconfigured immediately after the patch is applied. If the patched hosts are not reconfigured immediately, such hosts become unstable.
In the Select Updates page, select the packages to be updated. Click Next.
In the Select Hosts page, select the targets to be updated. You can also select a group by changing the target type to group. Click Next.
In the Credentials page, enter the credentials to be used for the updates. Click Next.
In the Pre/Post Scripts page, specify any scripts to be run before and after patching. Click Next.
In the Schedule page, enter the schedule to be used. Click Next.
Review the update parameters and click Finish.
A deployment procedure will be submitted to update the selected packages. Follow all the steps of the procedure until it completes successfully.
Once the procedure is completed, you can view the updated versions of the packages by clicking Targets, selecting the target name, clicking Configuration, and then clicking Packages.