The following table summarizes the availability of the Solaris patch management tools.
You can now use the smpatch command to apply patches to Solaris 8 systems.
If you need to apply a patch to a diskless client system, see Patching Diskless Client OS Services in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.
When you apply a patch, the patch tools call the pkgadd command to apply the patch packages from the patch directory to a local system's disk.
Do not run the pkgadd command directly to apply patches.
More specifically, 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.
The patchadd command cannot apply a patch 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.
You can use several different methods to download or apply one or more patches to your system. Use the following table to determine which method is best for your needs.
Command or Tool |
Description |
For More Information |
---|---|---|
Solaris 8 release Use this command to analyze your system to determine the appropriate patches, and to automatically download and apply the patches. Note that this command will not apply a patch that has the interactive property set. Only the local mode smpatch is available. |
How to Update Your System With Patches smpatch(1M) man page |
|
smpatch analyze and smpatch update |
Solaris 8 release First, use smpatch analyze to analyze your system to determine the appropriate patches. Then, use smpatch update to download and apply one or more of the patches to your system. Only the local mode smpatch is available. |
How to Analyze Your System to Obtain the List of Patches to Apply How to Update Your System With Patches smpatch(1M) man page |
smpatch analyze, smpatch download, and smpatch add |
Solaris 8 release First, use smpatch analyze to analyze your system to determine the appropriate patches. Then, use smpatch download to download them. This command also downloads any prerequisite patches. Then, use smpatch add to apply one or more of the patches to your system while the system is in single-user or multiuser mode. Only the local mode smpatch is available. |
smpatch(1M) man page |
Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, and Solaris 8 releases Apply unsigned patches to your system. |
patchadd(1M) man page |