Signed Patches Administration Guide for PatchPro 2.2

Selecting the Best Method for Applying Signed Patches

After you have installed or upgraded your patch management tool and completed the preparatory tasks (see Downloading and Installing the Patch Management Tools (Task Map)), use this table to determine which method is best for downloading and applying signed patches to your system.

Command or Tool	Description	For More Information
`smpatch update`	For Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, Solaris 8, and at least Solaris 9 4/03 – Use this command to identify the recommended patches and automatically download and apply the patches to your system. Notice that this command will not apply a patch that has the `interactive` property set.	See the smpatch(1M) man page.
`smpatch analyze`	Use this command to identify the recommended patches and display a list of recommended patch IDs for your system. Then, use the `smpatch download` and `smpatch add` commands to download and apply the patches to your system.	See the smpatch(1M) man page.
`smpatch download` and `smpatch add`	Use these commands to download and apply one or more patches to your system. These commands also download and apply any prerequisite patches.	See Example—Downloading and Applying a Signed Patch That Has No Dependencies. See Example—Downloading and Applying a Signed Patch That Has Dependencies. See Example—Downloading and Applying a Signed Patch That Has No Dependencies to a Solaris 9 System.
`ftp` and `smpatch add`	Use the `ftp` command to transfer one or more patches to your system. Then, use the `smpatch add` command to apply the patch or patches to your system.	See Example—Downloading and Applying a Signed Patch by Using `ftp`.
Solaris Management Console Patches Tool	For Solaris 9 only – Use this tool when you want the convenience of a GUI tool to manage signed patches.	See the smc(1M) and smcconf(1M) man pages. See the Solaris Management Console online help.