Managing Solaris Patches

This section describes how to manage Solaris patches with the Solaris patch tools that are available.

The patch tools do the following:

• Determine the Solaris version number of the managing host and the target host

• Update the patch package's pkginfo file with this information:

  • Patches that have been obsoleted by the patch being applied

  • Other patches that are required by this patch

  • Patches that are incompatible with this patch

While you apply patches, the patchadd command logs information in the /var/sadm/patch/patch-id/log file.

In this Solaris release, improvements have been made to the patchadd -M command. When you use this command to apply patches to your system, you are no longer required to specify patch IDs in numeric order. If you use the patchadd -M command without specifying a patch ID, all patches in the directory are installed on the system. For more information about these changes, see the patchadd(1M) man page.

The patchadd command cannot apply a patch or software update under the following conditions:

• The package is not fully installed on the system.

• The patch package's architecture differs from the system's architecture.

• The patch package's version does not match the installed package's version.

• A patch with the same base code and a higher revision number has already been applied.

• A patch that obsoletes this patch has already been applied.

• The patch is incompatible with a patch that has already been applied to the system. Each patch that has been applied keeps this information in its pkginfo file.

• The patch being applied depends on another patch that has not yet been applied.