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Sun Connection 1.1 Release Notes

Chapter 3 Issues Fixed and New Functionality

This chapter includes information about issues fixed and new features found in Sun Connection release 1.1 and 1.1.1 software.

This chapter covers the following issues:

Issues Fixed in the 1.1.1 Release

The following issues are fixed in the 1.1.1 release:

Enhanced Patch Removal

Removing a patch often removes implicitly installed older revisions. It will remove patches back to the last explicitly installed patch. Explicitly installed patches are patches that you physically install. Implicitly installed patches are changes that are included in an earlier patch. For example, if you installed patch –8 and then patch –10 , the latest patch ( –10 ) includes the changes from earlier patches; therefore, patch –10 implicitly obsoletes patch –9.

There is a special case, where the patch to be removed is also obsoleted by another patch family. In this case, the removal of this implicitly installed patch will remove the other explicitly installed patch family. Beginning with Sun Connection 1.1.1, you can limit the removal of the implicitly installed patches only to ones that are not obsoleted by other patch families.

The following is an example of the change in behavior:

New Functionality in the 1.1.1 Release

The following new functionality is available in the 1.1.1 release:

Firmware Recommendations

Beginning with version 1.1.1, Sun Connection will detect your system's firmware level. The components are visible in the Hardware category.

When you start a Bug Fixes job, Sun Connection will perform a firmware level check and it will recommend the installation of required firmware patches.

Note –

The firmware recommendation depends on the knowledge base. The firmware knowledge base is expected by June 15 2007.

New Notification Policy

Beginning with version 1.1.1, the notification feature is available as a policy. Before 1.1.1 you had to answer each 'Notifications' question interactively, and then save the policy for later reuse. Now you can set up a notification policy.

To use the new notification policy for a job, perform the following steps:

  1. In the Policy Editor, select the Notifications node.

  2. Select a predefined answer (Ask Me, Yes, No) for the Apply Fix action.

  3. Click OK to save the policy change.

Note –

If a task requires mandatory notifications and you set the Apply Fix parameter to No, the job will fail.

New Job Preference

Sun Connection jobs contain one or more tasks. Each task is made up of actions, such as installing (or uninstalling) a patch, package, configuration file, or script.

In versions before the 1.1.1 release, when an action (such as a patch or package install or uninstall) within a task failed, the entire task failed. Beginning with version 1.1.1, Sun Connection will continue to apply actions within a task, even when one or more actions within a task fails. If, for example, a patchadd fails within a task, the task and job will continue. This new default behavior applies to Solaris OS install or uninstall failures for either patches or packages. The behavior is configurable.

Note –

Some Solaris patches and packages should only be installed on the global zone. If you attempt to install Solaris global zone patches or packages on a local zone, the task will be marked as failed. In Sun Connection 1.1, these were logged as successful tasks and the job continued to run. In Sun Connection 1.1.1, the tasks are correctly identified as failures, but you now have the option to continue the job.

To disable the behavior and fail the job when a task fails, perform the following steps:

  1. From the Tools menu, select Preferences, then Host.

  2. Deselect the check box to disable the default behavior.

    The following is the default behavior:

    • Patch policy – Continue task if patch install fails

    • Packages – Continue task if package install fails

Print Progress in Single User Mode

When an agent is running in single user mode, a simple text progress is printed to the sytem's console.

Change in CLI Commands

The following command line options are no longer available:

You can still opt to type your user name and password interactively. If you want to call the CLI without interactive prompts, for example when you use a script, use the new Store Password, -sp, option.

When you use the -sp option, you are prompted for your user name and password. Sun Connection will encrypt the information and save it in your personal .uce.rc file. Once your information is saved, Sun Connection will automatically retrieve the information from your .uce.rc resource file when you run commands from the CLI.

Issues Fixed in the 1.1 Release

The following issues are fixed in the 1.1 release:

New Functionality in the 1.1 Release

This section covers the following functionality:

Installing the SDS and Agent in Zones

The SDS should only be installed in one zone on a system, either a global or non-global zone. The agent can be installed on any zone. The installer does not have to know on which zone it is installed.

Note –

If you are planning to install an agent in a non-global zone, an agent must also be installed in the global zone (CR 6511890)

Before determining where to install the agent, consider the following Solaris zone patching rules:

Patching in Zones

The zones hierarchy displays as a group and members of the group, for example if HostA has two non-global zones, it is displayed as HostA_zone_group [3]. Expand HostA_zone_group [3] to see the two non-global zones. The SDS automatically creates the group HostA_zone_group [3] and populates it with with registered agents from all of the zones on the system.

Before patching Solaris zones, you should be familiar with how zones are designed to work. An update can be installed in a non-global zone without being installed in a global zone, and vice versa. When patching to zones, some patches will not install in non-global zones (sparse or full) and others will. Some patches that are installed in the global zone do not affect non-global zones directly, but others do affect non-global zones. Within the constraint of the update itself. The packaging of the component defines whether it needs to be in the global zone or not. Under zones, there is just one instance of the Solaris OS, which means that usually components belonging to the OS runtime (kernel, services) must be updated in the global zones. The update meta-data, but not the bits, is propagated to the non-global zones.

Note –

See CR 6533814.

Adding Solaris Software With a Script

The directory change impacts the CLI procedures that are used for Solaris software. In this procedure, you will use a script from the Sun Connection CLI application to upload Solaris software. Use this procedure if you are unfamiliar with Solaris commands and having trouble unpacking the PKGs or tarring the directories.

Before You Begin

Install the latest Sun Connection CLI.

The script is located at /opt/SUNWuce/cli/bin/uce_cli.sh.

ProcedureTo Upload Solaris Software With CLI

  1. Change to the following directory by typing:


    cd /opt/SUNWuce/cli/bin/

  2. Type the following command:

    uce_cli -upload_files -D OS-version_architecture -T file1[,file2] -u admin

    Where the file1 and file2 are absolute pathnames.

  3. Type a password for the Sun Connection admin user.

  4. For the channel, type the number of the distribution-architecture, according to the displayed list of Available Channels, to which the packages you want to upload belong.

  5. At the prompt Would you like all found components to be added under specific category?, type y to put the packages in a user-defined category, and then at the Category name prompt, type the name of the category.

    If the category does not yet exist in the Sun Connection components list, it will be created. If you type n, the packages are added under a default category in the components list.

    uce_cli.sh will tar the Solaris package directories. Then it uploads the tarballs to the knowledge base. Sun Connection recognizes them as Solaris packages and enables you to deploy them as PKGs.