2 Using Interim Patches

Interim patches are bug fixes available to customers in response to specific bugs. They require a particular base release or patchset to be installed before they can be applied. They generally address specific bugs for a particular customer. These patches are not versioned and are generally available in a future patchset as well as the next product release.

This chapter discusses the following topics on interim patches:

• Structure of Interim Patches

• Interim Patch Versions

• Retrieving Interim Patches

Structure of Interim Patches

Interim patches generally come in a zipped format. You need to unzip them before you apply a patch. Figure 2–1 illustrates the structure of interim patches.

Figure 2-1 Structure of Interim Patches

Interim patches contain the following items:

• Patch Metadata — Information on the patch ID, bugs fixed, files affected, and actions to be performed.

• Payload — Files that OPatch will modify.

• Custom Scripts — Pre-processing and post-processing scripts that need to be run before and after patching.

Interim Patch Versions

OPatch 10.2 supports maintaining versions of patches. You can have two or more different versions of the same patch (with the same patch ID). This version information is stored in the OPatch metadata.

Metadata Tag

The metadata has a tag date_of_patch that stores the patch version information. The following sample shows the tag:

<date_of_patch year="YYYY" month="mmm" day="Day" time="Time" zone="TimeZone"/>: Date on which the patch was created

This tag records the time Oracle created the patch. If the same patch is created at a later time, this tag will record that time.

Note:

This version information is the time Oracle created the patch and not the time of patch application in the host.

For example, consider a patch with ID 300200 and the date_of_patch tag in the patch metadata as follows:

<date_of_patch year="2008" month="Dec" day="23" time="04:57:13 hrs" zone="US/Eastern"/>

OPatch considers this version of the patch to be created on December 23rd, 2008 at 04:57:13 hours.

Patch Information Directory

When you apply an interim patch to an Oracle home, OPatch stores the patch information in the $ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage directory. Inside this directory, separate directories are created for each patch applied to the Oracle home. You can only apply one version of the patch in the system at a given time.

You can determine the location of the patch information directory by executing the opatch lsinventory -detail command and looking for the patch location storage area information in the output, as shown in the following example:

Patch Location in Storage area:
/home1/HOMEtoiir571/.patch_storage/300200_Dec_23_2008_04_57_13

You can also find an unzipped version of the patch in the following location:

$ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage/<patch_id_timestamp>/original_patch

Retrieving Interim Patches

Oracle releases interim patches frequently to fix a bug or a set of bugs. You can get the interim patches by specifying the patch ID in My Oracle Support (formerly MetaLink) from the following location:

http://www.oracle.com/support/metalink/index.html