Patch List Operations

Patch Manager can create an ordered list of patches that you can save to a text file and use to perform patch operations.

You might use a patch list to apply the same set of patches to systems that have the same hardware and software configurations. Or, you might create a patch list file that contains all pertinent security patches and use the patch list to apply those security patches to one or more systems.

You can create a file that contains an ordered patch list by using the smpatch command in any of these ways:

• Perform an analysis of a system – Use the smpatch analyze command to analyze a system to generate an ordered list of patches and write it to a file. You can edit this file to remove unneeded patches.

• Supply a specific list of patches – Use the smpatch analyze command to generate an ordered list of patches based on a set of patches that you specify for a particular system. The patch list is resolved by augmenting the list with patches on which they depend.

• Point to a collection of patches stored on a system – Use the smpatch order command to produce an ordered list of patches based on a collection of patches stored on a system.

If you modify a patch list and the patches are available on your system, use the smpatch order command to put the list in an order suitable for applying patches. Otherwise, use the smpatch analyze command, which also produces an ordered list of patches.

You can use patch lists as input to the smpatch add, smpatch analyze, smpatch download, smpatch order, and smpatch update commands.

The smpatch add command attempts to apply all of the patches in the patch list, regardless of the policy for applying patches and patch dependencies.