Accessing Solaris Patches

Sun customers can access patches from the SunSolve Patch Portal web site. Although, some patches might only be accessible to customers with a service plan, such as a SunSpectrum^SM or a Solaris Service Plan customer. In all cases, you must be registered with Sun and have a Sun online ID to enter the SunSolve Patch Portal. These patches are updated nightly.

You can obtain Solaris patches from the http://sunsolve.sun.com web site. To access patches from the SunSolve Patch Portal web site, your system must be connected to the Internet and be capable of running a web browser, such as the Firefox browser.

You can access individual patches or a set of patches from a patch cluster, or refer to patch reports.

Each patch is associated with a README file that has information about the patch.

Solaris Patch Numbering

Patches are identified by unique patch IDs. A patch ID is an alphanumeric string that is a patch base code and a number that represents the patch revision number joined with a hyphen. For example, patch 118833-10 is the patch ID for the SunOS 5.10 kernel update patch, 10th revision.

Managing Solaris Patches

This section describes how to manage Solaris patches with the Solaris patch tools that are available.

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.

Note - In this Solaris release, improvements have been made to the patchadd -M command. When you use this command to apply patches to your system, you are no longer required to specify patch IDs in numeric order. If you use the patchadd -M command without specifying a patch ID, all patches in the directory are installed on the system. For more information about these changes, see the patchadd(1M) man page.

The patchadd command cannot apply a patch or software update 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.