[pca] Problems with UTF patch on minimized system

[Bleek Thomas]

Hello Don, hello Martin, hello list,

Thanks for your help. I read the provided document on minimizing http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-61-215491-1 
  and as I understand this, it should be possible to choose any  
install-cluster and adding packages after install.
Then it should be possible to patch the system and it should be  
supported, right?

It is not allowed to add packages after that patching or you have to  
install ALL (also already installed patches) again. This is obvious to  
me because otherwise the new packages will only eventually only  
partially patched. This has been discussed on the list some weeks ago.  
B.T.W.: Is it possible to do such a forced reinstall of all patches  
with pca and how?

To narrow the problem i tried a completely new install:
X4100, Solaris 10 U7, SUNWCreq, only C-locale (no german or european  
additions)
installing these packages after first reboot:
SUNWbash SUNWlucfg SUNWlur SUNWluu SUNWluzone SUNWwgetr SUNWgcmn  
SUNWwgetu SUNWsshcu SUNWsshdr SUNWsshdu SUNWsshr SUNWsshu SUNWless
no errors, all dependencies met.

after reboot installing pca and run pca -i in single user
Download Summary: 92 total, 92 successful, 0 skipped, 0 failed
Install Summary : 92 total, 92 successful, 0 skipped, 0 failed

After reboot I see the following warnings on the console when using  
ssh, scp, (as client and as server):
Aug 31 11:26:26 rz2 sshd[489]: [ID 800047 auth.error] error: Can't  
convert to UTF-8: Cannot convert the local codeset strings to UTF-8

This is the warning, I see on all my systems for some weeks now. I  
"solved" the problem with installing SUNWuiu8 (found this pkg with  
trial and error). This worked some weeks until last week. Then there  
was a new patch which did not install and this was the reason, I wrote  
to the PCA list.

I think, the warning is caused by patch
140119 06 < 11 RS-  17 SunOS 5.10_x86: sshd patch

Perhaps I could have installed the SUNWuiu8 packages at system install  
time before any patching but I don't think, this will change  
something. But of course I will try this if you tell me.

So my question: Is something wrong with my understanding of your  
"minimizing document"?

Thanks for any hints and sorry for the long mail (if somebody has read  
until here:-)

Thomas


Am 27.08.2009 um 13:38 schrieb Don O'Malley:

> Hi Martin/Thomas,
>
> We do test a patch against the standard install metaclusters.
>
> The testing we do should ensure that if a patch has pkgs that are  
> delivered as part of a particular install metacluster (i.e.  
> SUNWCXall, SUNWCprog, SUNWCreq, etc.), that all required patches  
> that patch has will have at least one pkg from the same install  
> metacluster (i.e. we ensure that all the required patches can be  
> installed).
>
> It is worth noting that the testing that we do involves testing  
> against the defined install Metaclusters, so if a customer has done  
> some custom minimization/hardening of their system then this is  
> obviously not a scenario that it is possible for us to test.
>
> From the sound of things Thomas, you had a minimized system which  
> you subsequently added the SUNWuiu8 pkg to.
> You the ran into issues when attempting to patch SUNWuiu8, as patch  
> 121734-08 could not install the required patches (as their required  
> pkgs are not on the system).
> This configuration is way outside of the configurations that Sun  
> support and as there is absolutely nothing to prevent you from using  
> pkgadd/pkgrm to add/remove whichever pkgs you like from a system,  
> this is not something that we ever could support in the current  
> architecture.
>
> Best,
> -Don
>
>
> Martin Paul wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>> thanks for your help. I did try to add the mentioned packages but  
>>> after that I got even more of these error messages, so I did not  
>>> try further.
>>
>> Yes, the problem is that package A again will require package B and  
>> C, and so on, and finally you end up installing "Entire  
>> Distribution" anyway. I've always been a fan of "don't install what  
>> you don't need", too, but Sun doesn't seem to favour this approach  
>> anymore.
>>
>>> Perhaps there could be implemented a "distribution service" in  
>>> pca? We use a proxy-setup and all of our client machines have  
>>> identical pca.conf files.
>>
>> I guess NFS (and a central pca.conf) is not feasible for you? The  
>> idea of having a central pca.conf on a proxy might be worth  
>> thinking about in the future, though. I'll put it on my ToDo list,  
>> but don't expect anything soon.
>>
>>> I'm wondering, why this problem had not hit me earlier. I use pca  
>>> for about 2 years now (GREAT THANKS again to you!) without the  
>>> need to add even ONE ignore line. So I thought this is a special  
>>> problem which could be solved by the Sunny boys or you.
>>
>> I've had similar issues reported to me, but probably not more than  
>> one per year. Actually, I agree that Sun should be able to fix  
>> this. IMHO, it's a bug when package A doesn't require package B,  
>> but a patch for package A requires a patch for package B. If you  
>> can install package A without package B, I guess you should always  
>> be able to install a patch for package A without requiring a patch  
>> for package B.
>>
>>> Thanks again. I really don't know what to do if pca would no exists.
>>
>> Thanks, me neither. If it wouldn't exist, I'd have to create it :)
>>
>> Martin.
>>
>

--
Dr. Thomas Bleek, Netzwerkadministrator
Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam
Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum
Telegrafenberg G261
D-14473 Potsdam
Tel.: +49 331 288- 1818/1681 Fax.: 1730 Mobil: +49 172 1543233
E-Mail: bl at gfz-potsdam.de

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