[pca] Question regarding PCA flag "-X"

[Govil, Pankaj]

Good Afternoon!
I am writing this note for two issues hoping someone can assist. I am really getting addicted to this sweet program. Thanks very much for your time in reading my mail.


 1.  It looks like even if I use the "-X" option to specify a location where we have the patchdiag.xref file, the program attempts to download the Sun's xref file. Most of the times I do not want it to download the file because generally there is a significant gap between the time I patch each of the Development, QA, Production and BCP servers. As such I prefer the program not to download the latest xref file.
 2.  For some reason, even though I am patching a Solaris 9 server, yet three patches one each for Solaris 7, 8 & 10 are reported as ones needing to be installed. Any idea why?

The commands and outputs have been pasted below.

pgovil at NDRef> uname -a
SunOS NDRef 5.9 Generic_122300-35 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-V440 ==> Solaris 9 box
pgovil at NDRef> pwd
/export/home/pgovil/pca
pgovil at NDRef> ls -l
total 34188
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2926934 Feb 23 05:00 patchdiag.xref ==> File created today morning at 5 AM via cron
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2885424 Dec 31 15:07 patchdiag.xref_010609
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2899559 Jan 16 11:48 patchdiag.xref.011509
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2902677 Jan 26 10:33 patchdiag.xref_020309
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2881954 Dec 25 21:30 patchdiag.xref.122408
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2926934 Feb 22 05:00 patchdiag.xref.old
drwxr-xr-x   2 pgovil   sysadmin     512 Dec 25 01:14 Security_Patches
drwxr-xr-x   3 pgovil   sysadmin    5120 Feb 18 05:00 spool

pgovil at NDRef> pca -l missings -X /export/home/pgovil/pca
Downloading xref file to /export/home/pgovil/pca/patchdiag.xref ==> Program attempting to download the xref file despite using -X flag
Trying http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchdiag.xref (1/1)
Using /export/home/pgovil/pca/patchdiag.xref from Feb/20/09
Host: NDRef (SunOS 5.9/Generic_122300-35/sparc/sun4u)
List: missings (5/213)

Patch  IR   CR RSB Age Synopsis
------ -- - -- --- --- -------------------------------------------------------
114016 02 < 03 RS-  14 SunOS 5.9: tomcat security patch
122300 35 < 36 RS-   6 SunOS 5.9: Kernel Patch
123919 -- < 09 -S-  61 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 7 ==> Why are these patches listed as one's missing?
123920 -- < 09 -S-  66 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 8 ==> Why are these patches listed as one's missing?
123923 -- < 09 -S-  66 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 10 ==> Why are these patches listed as one's missing?

pgovil at NDRef> ls -l
total 34188
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2926934 Feb 23 14:53 patchdiag.xref ==> Program did indeed download the file.
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2885424 Dec 31 15:07 patchdiag.xref_010609
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2899559 Jan 16 11:48 patchdiag.xref.011509
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2902677 Jan 26 10:33 patchdiag.xref_020309
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2881954 Dec 25 21:30 patchdiag.xref.122408
-rw-r--r--   1 pgovil   sysadmin 2926934 Feb 22 05:00 patchdiag.xref.old
drwxr-xr-x   2 pgovil   sysadmin     512 Dec 25 01:14 Security_Patches
drwxr-xr-x   3 pgovil   sysadmin    5120 Feb 18 05:00 spool

pgovil at NDRef> pca -l missings -X /export/home/pgovil/pca
Using /export/home/pgovil/pca/patchdiag.xref from Feb/20/09 ==> If file is fairly new, then the program does not attempt to download the file.
Host: NDRef (SunOS 5.9/Generic_122300-35/sparc/sun4u)
List: missings (5/213)

Patch  IR   CR RSB Age Synopsis
------ -- - -- --- --- -------------------------------------------------------
114016 02 < 03 RS-  14 SunOS 5.9: tomcat security patch
122300 35 < 36 RS-   6 SunOS 5.9: Kernel Patch
123919 -- < 09 -S-  61 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 7
123920 -- < 09 -S-  66 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 8
123923 -- < 09 -S-  66 Sun Management Center 3.6.1: Patch for Solaris 10

-X, --xrefdir=DIR
         Set location of the cross-reference file. The default is
         /var/tmp (in proxy mode, the default is the current
         directory).  By default, patchdiag.xref is writable for
         all users. If the xrefown option is set, or the xrefdir
         option contains /home, the cross reference file will be
         writable by the current user only.

Thanks,

Pankaj Govil
PGovil at NYTimes.com<mailto:PGovil at NYTimes.com>
Ph: (212) 556-3941

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