Managing Software (Overview)

Software management involves adding and removing software from stand-alone systems, servers, and their clients. This chapter describes the various tools that are available for installing and managing software.

This chapter does not describe installing the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) on a new system, nor does it describe installing or upgrading a new version of the Solaris OS. For information about installing or upgrading the Solaris OS, see Solaris Express Installation Guide: Basic Installations.

This is a list of the overview information in this chapter.

• What's New in Software Management in the Solaris Operating System?

• Where to Find Software Management Tasks

• Overview of Software Packages

• Tools for Managing Software Packages

• Adding or Removing a Software Package (pkgadd)

• Key Points for Adding Software Packages (pkgadd)

• Guidelines for Removing Packages (pkgrm)

• Restrictions on Adding and Removing Software Packages and Patches for Solaris Releases That are Not Zones Aware

• Avoiding User Interaction When Adding Packages (pkgadd)

For the most up-to-date information for managing packages and patches in the Solaris OS, see http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/.

For step-by-step instructions on managing software, see Chapter 19, Managing Software With Solaris System Administration Tools (Tasks) and Chapter 20, Managing Software by Using Package Commands (Tasks).

For information about managing software on Solaris systems with zones installed, see Chapter 25, Adding and Removing Packages and Patches on a Solaris System With Zones Installed (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System.