[pca] Recommend patch cluster installation using PCA

[Martin Paul]

Hi,

> Is there a way to install recommended patch cluster using pca?

Using the cluster or using pca are two different philosophies of 
patching, so the question doesn't make much sense.

The Recommended Patch cluster is a set of patches prepared by Sun in a 
bundle which contains most of those patches (but not all of them) which 
carry the Recommended or Security attribute, plus some other patches. 
It's updated every two weeks (AFAIR), and if you want to stay current on 
patches you will download the same patches again and again. Installation 
of the cluster might take longer than necesssary, as it will always try 
to install all of the included patches. You will still miss some of the 
security patches, esp. those for unbundled software.

With pca, you decide on a patch group you'd like to install, like all 
the missing patches which are recommended or security ("missingrs") or 
all applicable patches ("missing"). pca will look at what you already 
have, and only download and install the missing patches. This saves a 
lot of download bandwidth. Of course you can feed any list of patches to 
pca to install (like those included in the cluster).

Whether it's better to install e.g. only the security patches or all 
missing patches is on you. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.

Hope that helps,

Martin.