[pca] view required PROM updates?

[Don O'Malley]

Hi,

We have been working over the past number of months to introduce a 
product based search in to PatchFinder - 
http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchfinder/.

pca is really designed to download and install Sun standard svr4 format 
patches. It does not and should not have the capability to handle 
firmware patches.
As Martin has pointed out, these patches do not use Sun's standard 
patchadd tool to apply, but instead typically require the user to place 
a file in a particular location and then reboot the machine with 
specific options to pick up the firmware update.
For these reasons information regarding firmware patches which firmware 
patches to apply to your system should not be derived from information 
in the patchdiag.xref file.

If you want a tool capable of performing bare metal provisioning, then 
perhaps you want a heavyweight patching tool like Oracle Enterprise 
Manager Ops Center - 
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/enterprise-manager/opscenter/index.html 
- but this is not a free tool!

So, where can you find firmware information?
Like I said initially, we are in the process of introducing a product 
based search into PatchFinder. This will enable you to navigate to 
products, such as the SunFire V890 and see all firmware patches specific 
to it.
In the meantime you do have few other options:
1) Use the Big Admin Patching Center "Firmware" section 
(http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/firmware/) - For example, info for 
the v880/890 is at 
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/firmware/release_history.jsp#V880
2) For older systems you may find what you need in 
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-61-204156-1
3) Use the existing PatchFinder tool to do a "Synopsis" line search for 
"890" (be sure to check the "Show Obsolete" checkbox to see all patches 
and not just the latest):
http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchfinder/?max%3D20%26entitlementFilter%3D%26keyword%3D%26state%3DAVAILABLE%26uiForm%3DY%26securityFilter%3D%26uiAdvForm%3DN%26isObsolete%3DTRUE%26modifiedFrom%3D%26patchId%3D%26architecture%3DAll%26sortDir%3D%26patchProperty%3D%26releasedFrom%3D%26sunsolve%3D%26sortBy%3D%26file%3D%26releasedBefore%3D%26synopsis%3Dv890%26osRelease%3DAll%26bugId%3D

HTH,
-Don


Martin Paul wrote:
> John Lyman wrote:
>> Is there a way to view required PROM updates along with missing patches?
>
> Eric and Glenn are correct - the only bit of information that pca 
> could use to correlate firmware patches with a certain machine is the 
> textual description of the patch. This might look simple at first, but 
> often there are multiple firmware patches for e.g. "V880". Or just 
> look at these:
>
>> 119232 -- < 02 --- 999 Hardware/PROM: Sun Blade 2500 (non Silver) Sun 
>> Fire
>> V250 Flash PRO
>> 119233 -- < 02 --- 999 Hardware/PROM: Sun Blade 2500 (Silver) Flash PROM
>> Update
>
> The "uname" command doesn't have information about the color of the 
> machine. Then there's much more firmware in a system than you might 
> imagine (disks, dvd drive, back plane, service processor, etc.), all 
> of which require different patches.
>
> It's not that it's technically impossible to find a solution for this 
> problem. Sun could have given a unique ID to any device with patchable 
> firmware, provide a command which lists all the IDs and firmware 
> versions in a system, and list the IDs/versions in patchdiag.xref with 
> each patch. Now you have all ingredients to make a tool like pca work 
> for firmware patches as well.
>
> In a closed environment of Sun hard- and software that would have been 
> doable, but as soon as you add third-party hardware, everything gets 
> very complicated ..
>
> Martin.
>