[pca] PCA not reporting on patches that may need to be re-installed

Sun Mar 22 02:34:30 CET 2009

Norman, 
Your example is not right, as you are comparing 2 packages from 2 DVDs, of course the patchlist is going to be different. 

Your primary query was to patch a newer package with a patch which originally brings up an older package to the current package level. In the snippet I enclosed, I was looking at the pkginfo of the patch (136882-02) which brings up the version of the software (imagemagick) to the latest version, which is also in the latest package. 

My argument was that, since you are installing a newer package, there is no requirement of patching it. Please note the release of that patch is Oct 06 2008 and the release of Sol 10 U6 was Nov 2008, there were no new packages or patches release for that product within the span of 25 days. 

In your example, you are comparing 2 packages, which are patched to current when they were released and these two releases are 6 months apart. Of course there were a lot of changes. In fact, there were 3 kernel versions and a new boot archive. 

Please note that ZFS and Zones packages released in U1 to U5 can be upgraded to its full functionality that comes with U6 by mere patching. SUN has made it very clear that they will port their functionality via patching and not through new packages, giving us a break in upgrading the entire OS. 

I know that you are not worried about patching Imagemagick alone, but the debate is valid. What I was trying to argue was that all new packages do not need to have patches which do the same thing installed. 

One of the main reasons why that patch did not give you an error is because the newer package did not ask for -02 revision of that patch and it had its max-instances set to 1000. 

-GGR 

-- 
Rajiv G Gunja 
Blog: http://osrocks.blogspot.com 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Norman Lyon" <norman.lyon at gmail.com> 
To: "PCA (Patch Check Advanced) Discussion" <pca at lists.univie.ac.at> 
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2009 12:59:35 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [pca] PCA not reporting on patches that may need to be re-installed 

>From everything I've ever seen, the version isn't to see whether 
you're patched or not, the version is to identify whether a patch is 
compatible or not. If you note, the patchlist is different. When 
multiple patches can address the same package, you can't change the 
version for each and every patch. 

To show a similar point, look at the SUNWnfscu version and patchlist 
info between S10U5 and S10U6. Same versions, but different patches. 

root[ksh]@idgaf2> grep VERSION 
/net/brm04-infra-01/export/install/media/solaris_5.10_05.08_sparc/Solaris_10/Product/SUNWnfscu/pkginfo 
VERSION=11.10.0,REV=2005.01.21.15.53 
root[ksh]@idgaf2> grep VERSION 
/net/brm04-infra-01/export/install/media/solaris_5.10_10.08_sparc/Solaris_10/Product/SUNWnfscu/pkginfo 
VERSION=11.10.0,REV=2005.01.21.15.53 
Croot[ksh]@idgaf2> grep PATCHLIST 
/net/brm04-infra-01/export/install/media/solaris_5.10_05.08_sparc/Solaris_10/Product/SUNWnfscu/pkginfo 
PATCHLIST=118833-36 120011-14 127127-11 125095-15 128010-10 
root[ksh]@idgaf2> grep PATCHLIST 
/net/brm04-infra-01/export/install/media/solaris_5.10_10.08_sparc/Solaris_10/Product/SUNWnfscu/pkginfo 
PATCHLIST=118833-36 120011-14 127127-11 137137-09 125095-15 138287-07 
root[ksh]@idgaf2> 

Don't get me wrong in worrying about SUNWimagick or SUNWnfcsu, in 
particular. It's the problem of when a patch may be installed, but it 
needs to be re-applied to patch a package that doesn't have it. You 
can get the same effect by taking an unpatched FCS build, and 
installing packages from a newer release. A new patch level will be 
on the box, but it'll only be applied to the new packages. 

Quoting Rajiv Gunja <opn.src.rocks at gmail.com>: 

> Adding to what David mentioned: 
> 
> The Patch in question here: 136882-02, which patches ImageMagick package 
> patches the current version to the same version as the newly installed 
> version downloaded from Solaris 10 Upade 6 DVD. 
> 
> Snippet: 
> <ggr at pcaproxy> pwd 
> /tmp/136882-02/SUNWimgick 
> 
> <ggr at pcaproxy> cat pkginfo 
> PKG=SUNWimagick 
> NAME=ImageMagick - Image Manipulation Utilities and Libraries 
> ARCH=sparc 
> VERSION=11.10.0,REV=2005.01.08.05.16 
> SUNW_PRODNAME=SunOS 
> SUNW_PRODVERS=5.10/SunOS Development 
> SUNW_PKGTYPE=usr 
> SUNW_OBSOLETES= 
> MAXINST=1000 
> CATEGORY=system 
> DESC=ImageMagick - Image Manipulation Utilities and Libraries 5.4.7 
> VENDOR=Sun Microsystems, Inc. 
> HOTLINE=Please contact your local service provider 
> EMAIL= 
> CLASSES=none 
> BASEDIR=/ 
> SUNW_PKGVERS=1.0 
> SUNW_REQUIRES= 
> SUNW_INCOMPAT= 
> SUNW_PATCHID=136882-02 
> SUNW_PATCH_PROPERTIES= 
> PSTAMP=sfw10-patch20080918073604 
> 
> Now lets look at the version from Solaris 10 U6 DVD: 
> 
> <ggr at pcaproxy> df -k . 
> Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on 
> /dev/lofi/1 2599020 2599020 0 100% /mnt/Sol10U6 
> 
> <ggr at pcaproxy> pwd 
> /mnt/Sol10U6/Solaris_10/Product/SUNWimagick 
> 
> <ggr at pcaproxy> cat pkginfo 
> ARCH=sparc 
> BASEDIR=/ 
> CATEGORY=system 
> DESC=ImageMagick - Image Manipulation Utilities and Libraries 5.4.7 
> EMAIL= 
> HOTLINE=Please contact your local service provider 
> MAXINST=1000 
> NAME=ImageMagick - Image Manipulation Utilities and Libraries 
> PKG=SUNWimagick 
> SUNW_PKGTYPE=usr 
> SUNW_PKGVERS=1.0 
> SUNW_PRODNAME=SunOS 
> SUNW_PRODVERS=5.10/SunOS Development 
> VENDOR=Sun Microsystems, Inc. 
> VERSION=11.10.0,REV=2005.01.08.05.16 
> PSTAMP=sfw10-patch20071219094819 
> CLASSES=none 
> PATCHLIST=136882-01 
> PATCH_INFO_136882-01=Installed: Mon Oct 27 09:15:55 PDT 2008 From: fern 
> Obsoletes: Requires: Incompatibles: 
> PKG_SRC_NOVERIFY= none 
> PKG_DST_QKVERIFY= none 
> PKG_CAS_PASSRELATIVE= none 
> #FASPACD= none 
> 
> If you look at the "VERSION" lines in the output, both point to the same 
> version. In the DVD package info, it lists Patch prerequisite as 136882-01 
> and not 136882-02. 
> 
> Note here that Solaris 10 Update 6 has all the patches up to its release 
> pre-installed in it. 
> 
> So, there is no need to install that patch again. 
> 
> -GGR 
> 
> -- 
> Rajiv G Gunja 
> Blog: http://ossrocks.blogspot.com 
> 
> 
> 2009/3/21 David Stark <dave at davidstark.name> 
> 
>> Norman Lyon wrote: 
>> 
>>> I've run into problems where a patch may need to be re-installed if 
>>> someone has added a package after patching. PCA does not seem to catch 
>>> this. 
>>> 
>> 
>> As far as I'm aware none of the automated patch tools available for Solaris 
>> will catch this - they all use 'showrev -p' to check what patches are 
>> installed. It's one of the many quirks that makes patching Sun boxes so much 
>> fun. 
>> 
>> 
> 
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