Oracle Solaris 11 Package Changes

IPS is a framework that provides the capability for software lifecycle management, which includes installation, upgrade, and the removal of packages. IPS utilizes packaging mechanisms that are significantly different than the legacy SVR4 packaging mechanism that is used in Oracle Solaris 10. An IPS package is a collection of directories, files, links, drivers, dependencies, groups, users, and license information in a defined format. This collection represents the installable objects of a package. Packages have attributes, such as package name and description. IPS pkg(5) packages are stored in IPS package repositories that are populated by IPS publishers. See pkg(5).

The following IPS components are described in this chapter:

• IPS command-line utilities – IPS includes a suite of pkg commands that enable you to list, search, install, update, and remove software packages. See pkg(1). IPS commands also enable you to manage package publishers and copy or create package repositories. See Updating the Software on Your Oracle Solaris 11 System.

• IPS GUI tools (Package Manager and Update Manager) – The Package Manager and Update Manager GUIs are used to update and manage software packages from the desktop.

• IPS publishers and repositories – A publisher is a forward domain name that identifies a person, group of persons, or an organization that publishes one or more packages. A repository is like a package archive, where clients can publish and retrieve packages. Several Oracle package repositories are available. See Copying and Creating Oracle Solaris 11 Package Repositories.

  If you have a system with zones that does not have direct access to a public IPS repository, see Using https_proxy and http_proxy on a System That Has Installed Zones in Oracle Solaris Administration: Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle Solaris 10 Zones, and Resource Management.

• Boot environment management – The beadm utility is used to create and manage boot environments, which are bootable instances of the Oracle Solaris operating system image, along with any other software packages that are installed in that image. See Tools for Managing Boot Environments.

For SVR4 package to IPS package conversion information, see the IPS Developer's Guide.