Removing Updates From Your System

You might want to remove (or back out) an update that you previously applied to your system. Update Manager enables you to remove updates.

Do not remove the Update Manager feature update from a system, or Update Manager will not work properly.

When you remove an update, the Solaris update tools restore all of the files that have been modified by that update, unless any of the following are true:

• The update was applied by using the patchadd -d command, which instructs patchadd not to save copies of files being updated or replaced.

• The update was applied by using the patchadd command without the -d option, and the backout files that were generated have since been removed.

• The update has been made obsolete by a later update.

• The update is required by another update.

During the update removal process, the patchrm command logs the backout process in the /tmp/backoutlog.process-id file. This log file is automatically removed if the update is successfully removed.

You can use the Update Manager GUI to remove one or more updates by selecting them from the list of applied updates. However, you can only remove one update at a time with the smpatch remove command.

If you attempt to remove an update on which other updates depend, it is not removed. If you remove all of the updates that depend upon this update, you can remove the update.

When you attempt to remove an update on which other updates depend, Update Manager presents you with the list of updates that must be removed as well. To remove the update you originally selected, you must agree to remove these updates.