Patching Solaris

Introduction

I won't go into detailed explanation of what a patch is, but you should know that by applying patches (fixes), you can eliminate bugs and security vulnerabilities.

Detecting Patches

1	`showrev -p`

1	`Patch: 106793-01 Obsoletes: Requires: Incompatibles: Packages: SUNWhea . . .`

1	`patchadd -p`

1 2	`Patch: 106793-01 Obsoletes: Requires: Incompatibles: Packages: SUNWhea . . .`

These versions should be identical. If they're not, it means a patch has been applied.

You can also see the different system patches here:

1	`ls /var/sadm/patch`

1 2	`107558-05 107594-04 107630-01 107663-01 107683-01 107696-01 107817-01 107582-01 107612-06 107640-03`

Retrieving Patches

For France, here is the address for Solaris patches: http://sunsolve.sun.fr

Then, on Sun's FTP site, get the latest version:

1	`cd /var/tmp`

ftp sunsolve.sun.com
Connected to sunsolve.sun.com.
(output omitted)
Name (sunsolve:usera): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password: yourpassword
(output omitted)
ftp> bin
200 Type set to I.
ftp> cd /patchroot/reports
ftp> get public_patch_report
(output omitted)
ftp> cd /patchroot/clusters
ftp> get 10_SunAlert_Patch_Cluster.README
(output omitted)
ftp> cd /patchroot/current_unsigned
ftp> mget 112605*
mget 112605-01.zip? y
(output omitted)
mget 112605.readme? y
ftp> bye

Decompress the patch:

1	`/usr/bin/unzip 105050-01.zip`

Implementing Patches

Here are the existing commands:

patchadd - Install a patch
patchrm - Remove a patch
smpatch - utility to download and install a patch

patchadd

Let's install the patch:

1	`cd /var/tmp`

patchadd 105050-01
Checking installed patches...
Verifying sufficient filesystem capacity (dry run method)
Installing patch packages...
Patch number 105050-01 has been successfully installed.
See /var/sadm/patch/105050-01/log for details.
Patch packages installed:
  SUNWhea

pathrm

To remove a patch:

1	`patchrm 105050-01`

Checking installed packages and patches...
Backing out patch 105050-01...
Patch 105050-01 has been backed out.

Don't forget to restart the machine after applying a patch.

smpatch

There's also another utility that allows you to automatically download and install (or remove) a patch:

smpatch get -L patchpro.patch.source patchpro.download.directory

1 2	`https://updateserver.sun.com/solaris/ /var/sadm/spool`