[pca] Question regarding PCA flag "-X"

[Martin Paul]

Hi,

> I am really getting addicted to this sweet program.

It's always great to hear that :)

> 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.

Glenn already pointed you at the -y/--nocheckxref option. There are two 
separate options, as sometimes you might want to store the xref file in 
a certain directory, but still keep it up-to-date automatically.

When using multiple baseline xref files as you do, it's best to keep 
them in different directories, like:

   /path/to/xref/010609/patchdiag.xref
   /path/to/xref/011509/patchdiag.xref
   ...

Then you can use e.g.:

   pca -X /path/to/xref/010609 -y ...

to select a certain xref file file without having to rename it.

> 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?

Again, Glenn already pointed into the right direction. Sometimes, 
especially for "unbundled" patches (for Solaris applications not 
belonging to the core OS), the same package versions are used on all 
Solaris releases, but there are different patches produced, one per 
Solaris release. When pca isn't 100% sure that a patch does *not* apply 
to a system, it always shows the patch. As a case like you describe it 
is not uncommon, though, I've added special hints for certain patches to 
pca to identify the correct patch for each Solaris release.

Actually, a workaround for the patches you list is already in the 
current development release of pca. Either get that, or wait one or two 
days, as I'm about to put out the next official release.

If you ever hit such a problem again: A short term fix is to use pca's 
"ignore" option in e.g. /etc/pca.conf. You should report the problem to 
the mailing list as well, though, so I can fix it in pca (and therefore 
for all users).

Hope that helps,

Martin.