Chapter 4 Known Problems

This chapter describes known problems relating to the installation and use of the Solaris 8 MU7 software.

The following bug has been added since the Solaris 8 Maintenance Update 7 Installation Guide was published on the Solaris 8 Maintenance Update 7 CD.

• "Array Element Limitation in Korn Shell Might Cause patchadd and patchrm to Fail (4470489)"

Installation Bugs

Array Element Limitation in Korn Shell Might Cause patchadd and patchrm to Fail (4470489)

The limit on the number of array elements that are permitted in the Korn shell (ksh) might cause the patchadd command to create an incomplete list of the patches that are currently installed. When the patchadd(1M) and patchrm(1M) commands check the incomplete list of installed patches, the commands might fail to install or back out a patch.

Workaround: Before you install the Solaris 8 Maintenance Update 7 release, apply the current version of the following patches in the order listed.

install_mu Does Not Function Correctly When Starting It Using sh (4062334)

Because of problems regarding the interactions between sh(1) and ksh(1), the install_mu utility might fail to install certain patches correctly when you start it using the following command from the command line or from an administrative script:

# /bin/sh ./install_mu options

Workaround: Execute install_mu from the command line or from an administrative script as follows:

# ./install_mu options

patchadd Displays an Error That It Is Terminating

One of the following benign messages might be displayed by install_mu:

One or more patch packages included in
XXXXXX-YY are not installed on this system.

Patchadd is terminating.

Or:

Installation of XXXXXX-YY failed:
  Attempting to patch a package that is not installed.

These messages indicate that patchadd could not find on your system any of the packages that it intended to patch, so it skipped the indicated patch.

The message is displayed when patchadd notices a discrepancy installing a patch of one architecture onto a system with a different architecture (for example, a sun4u patch on a sun4m system.)

This may also be the result of one or more missing packages. The package might have been removed by the administrator, or never installed, as in the case of installing a cluster smaller than the Entire Distribution.

Workaround: Ignore the message.

Cannot login if System Is Not Rebooted (4423853)

When installing in single-user mode, do not use the exit command when done. You must instead use the reboot command. If exit is used instead of reboot, the following happens:

• The system is brought to init 3 and you cannot log in until the system is rebooted.

• No other users can log in until the system is rebooted.

• pam_projects.so.1 dumps core when any user or process tries to log in. The following message is displayed:

  NOTICE: core_log: in.rshd[1479] core dumped: /var/crash/core.in.rshd.1479

• If a process attempts to access the pam_projects.so.1 module, load module messages are displayed on the system console. A message similar to the following is displayed:

  cron[1433]: load_modules: can not open module /usr/lib/security/pam_projects.so.1

  These messages are also displayed if MU7 is installed in multi-user mode. In both cases, the messages will disappear once the system is rebooted.

Workaround: If the exit command is used after installing in single-user mode, reboot the system.

If the exit command is used after installing in multi-user mode and no root users remain logged in, reboot the system.

patchrm Displays Error Message After Installation (4395701)

While installing MU7, patch numbers 109879-02 and 109889-01 might display the following benign error messages in the patch log file:

pkgproto: ERROR: unable to stat
</platform/SUNW,Grover/kernel/drv/sparcv9/isadma>
pkgproto: ERROR: unable to stat
</usr/platform/SUNW,Grover/include>.

Workaround: Ignore the message. The messages indicate that patchrm(1M) is attempting to delete the files after they have already been deleted.

patchadd Displays Error Message After Compression (4401100)

While installing MU7, patch numbers 109613-03, 109887-08, 109887-08, 110068-02, 109614-03, 109749-03, and 110069-02 might display the following benign error message in the patch log file :

var/sadm/pkg/pkgabbrev/save/patchid/undo: -- file unchanged
compress(1) returned error code 2

Workaround: Ignore the message. The message indicates that compress(1) could not create an archive that is smaller than the original file. patchrm uses compress(1) to shrink the backout package.