[pca] Don't want to download patchdiag.xref whenever pca commands are issued

[Martin Paul]

Hi,

> Is there any option to specify to pca, so that whenever pca commands are
> run, it SHOULD NOT update patchdiag.xref. 

Use --nocheckxref/-y

> Also, is this a good practice, would love to know pros/cons.

A common practice is to keep a copy of patchdiag.xref, use that to 
install patches on the test machines, wait until everything has been 
tested and then use the archived xref file to patch the production machines.

If it's just about keeping one machine up-to-date by installing patches 
e.g. once a week or month, it's best to use the most current xref file 
everytime.

> Another question on local clients that are configured to contact local
> pca server : Let's say I am trying to install a patch on local client,
> and the local pca patch server does not have that patch available, pca
> does not seem to download that patch from sunsolve to local patch
> server. I have to issue pca -d <<patchnum>> on local server and then
> issue pca -i <<patchnum>> on local client.
>  Is this expected behaviour or is there an option to configure to
> autodownload  patch on local pca server if the patch isn't available.

It depends on the type of patch server you are using (can you show us 
your "patchurl" setting? If you have a local caching proxy 
(pca-proxy.cgi), it will always keep a copy of any downloaded patch.

If you use a self-maintained local patch server (e.g. 
patchurl=http://myserver/patches/) it's on you to fill it with the patch 
zip files.

Martin.