[pca] patch delta between two dates

[Dave Stark]

Hi.

Check /var/sadm/patch - every patch that's been installed on the system 
should have a directory in there, and they're all datestamped from the 
patch install time.

As far as I can tell, they don't get removed when a patch is obsoleted 
(I've got a Sol6 host here with 4 different revisions of the same patch 
listed in /var/sadm/patch).

Dave

On 01/26/2011 06:37 PM, Van Bommel, Paul wrote:
> I've been asked to provide a list of patches that have been applied to a
> system over a period of time. (about a year). These have been applied in
> 3-4 patching sessions.
>
> We use PCA and it works very well. We record details in a single
> directory on each system per patching session. Things like the download
> and install output in a log  file, the patchdiag.xref used on that date,
> any local pca.conf file, and the patch zip files. The zip files
> sometimes get cleaned out from the local system to save space.
>
> My log file has a lot of details, and I was able to generate a list of
> "Successfully" installed patches, but I don't trust this technique. Am I
> on the right track here. (egrep '^Installing|^Successful' log.txt)
>
> I'm starting to think I should have recorded the three files used by PCA
> uname.out, showrev.out, and pkginfo.out with all the other files I was
> storing. Then run PCA on the old input files with the last "baseline"
> patchdiag.xref
>
> Does anyone have a good technique to determine the delta of patches
> added in a period of time. (using PCA or other tools)
>
> What info do you record in a patch session to make your life easier when
> questions like this popup?
> The worst part is that I cannot go back in time to produce these file. I
> can only start recording now.
> I wish the base OS had some kind of version control. (not ZFS, something
> in the package/patch database)
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Paul Van Bommel
>
>
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>
>