Solaris Patch Management Tool Caveats

Be aware of these key points when using the Solaris patch management tools:

• For Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, or Solaris 8 only – If you have a previous version of the PatchPro software on your system, the older version will be upgraded when Solaris Patch Manager Base 1.0.1 is installed.

• The digital signature for signed patches is verified when the patches are downloaded with the smpatch download command.

  However, on a Solaris 9 system, no patch signature validation message is displayed during the patch download, even if the patch signature is successfully verified. If the patch signature verification fails, you will know because the patch is not downloaded to your system.

• For Solaris 9 only – The smpatch command prompts you for authentication information if you do not specify the information in the command line.

  For example, you can specify authentication information to the smpatch command using the following syntax:

  # smpatch add -p mypassword -u root -- -i patch-ID

  The smpatch subcommands are separated from the authentication options and arguments by --. The smpatch subcommands are add, analyze, download, remove, and update. Support for the update subcommand began with the Solaris 9 4/03 release.

  Or, you can let the smpatch command prompt you for the authentication information.

  # /usr/sadm/bin/smpatch add -i patch-ID Authenticating as user: root Type /? for help, pressing <enter> accepts the default denoted by [ ] Please enter a string value for: password :: Loading Tool: com.sun.admin.patchmgr.cli.PatchMgrCli from starbug Login to starbug as user root was successful. Download of com.sun.admin.patchmgr.cli.PatchMgrCli from starbug was successful.

• Use the /opt/SUNWppro/bin/uninstallpatchpro script if you need to uninstall PatchPro 2.2.