[pca] (Re-)install all patches for a product

[Martin Paul]

Michael,

> For some reason or the other, Sun SSHD got deinstalled and
> then the original, unmodified sshd packages (ie. SUNWsshcu
> and friends) got reinstalled from the S10U5 DVD.
> 
> Now the patches (eg. 128318-01) are of course missing.
> 
> How would one go about re-installing missing patches?

As far as pca is concerned, the patch will be missing, and will be 
installed again. Information about installed patches is recorded in the 
/var/sadm/pkg/*/pkginfo files. The "showrev -p" and "patchadd -p" 
commands use this information to list installed patches, and this 
information is used by pca.

When you remove a package, the pkginfo file will be gone, too, so every 
trace about the patch having been installed is gone.

There is one problem, though - when a patch installs modifications to 
multiple packages, and only one of them is removed and re-installed 
later on, the patch will still be seen as "installed". This is a known 
and inherent problem of Sun's package system. You get the same problem 
when installing e.g. pkg A, then a patch which has fixes for pkg A and 
B, and then install pkg B. The patch will be regarded as being 
installed, while pkg B still has the unpatched files. Finding such 
"partly installed patches" is non-trivial.

Martin.