[pca] Oracle removed support from patchdiag.xref for --minimal option in pca?

Wed Jun 8 15:46:44 CEST 2011

Thanks Don.  I agree that the CPU has an excellent install script.  The
problem with using the CPU is when you are deploying to hundreds of servers,
there is a significant amount of time involved in staging the large bundle
of patches when you really are only applying a very small subset between
CPU's.  PCA allows us to only grab what is needed on an individual server vs
having a script run through a long list of patches and see if they apply.

What I'll probably end up doing is keeping copies of the patchdiag.xref file
from around the time that the CPU is released and then compare the patch
list in the CPU against the patchdiag.xref until I find the one that
matches.  What would be even better is if the CPU contained a copy of
patchdiag.xref that can be used by PCA users to replicate the CPU.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Don O'Malley <don.omalley at oracle.com> wrote:

>  Hi Jeff,
>
> The Oracle Patch Strategy Best Practice is to download and install the CPU
> (ideally to an Alternate Boot Environment). The CPU does have the advantage
> of having an excellent install script (written by Ed Clark; a Senior
> Engineer on my team) and is tested by my team prior to release; two
> excellent reasons why we recommend that customers use it!
> It also supports application to an Alternate Boot Environment (ABE). (I
> know PCA supports patch application to an ABE too...)
>
> PCA is a third-party tool, which Martin kindly maintains and makes freely
> available, so is not the recommended way to apply the CPU. There is no
> special copy of the patchdiag.xref from the recommended patch cluster the
> CPU is cut from made available. (The day the CPU is released is not
> accurate, as we need to cut the CPU a week before to allow time to test.)
>
> I know that previously Chris Reece released a tool called Mkpcadir<http://www.jessies.org/%7Ecar/projects/mkpcadir/>,
> which created a patchdiag.xref based on the directory structure of the EIS
> (Enterprise Installation Standards) DVD.
> I do not know if someone else has created a similar tool that would do
> something similar for patch clusters???
>
> Each Patch Cluster (eg. Recommended Patch Cluster, CPU Patch Cluster) that
> Oracle produces does contain a patch_list file, which is a flat file listing
> the patches the cluster delivers in the order in which they should be
> applied.
> I'm not 100% sure of the correct syntax to use with PCA, but I think you
> should be able to rename this file patchlist.txt and provide it as an input
> to PCA.
> Perhaps Martin or someone else could confirm...
>
> HTH,
> -Don
>
>
>
> Jeff wrote:
>
> Guess I didn't understand that was the purpose of --minimal.  So based on
> your answer, there is no way to follow the Oracle Best Practices patch
> strategy of applying the CPU between update releases using pca?  Except
> maybe grabbing the patchdiag.xref on the day the CPU is released and
> comparing the patch revisions between patchdiag and the CPU?
>
>
> On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 4:59 AM, Don O'Malley <don.omalley at oracle.com>wrote:
>
>> Hi Jeff,
>>
>> The --minimal option never mapped to the contents of the CPU.
>>
>> The --minimal option is mapped to the Recommended Patch Cluster contents,
>> not the CPU. The CPU is effectively an archived version of the Recommended
>> Patch Cluster, so the 2 are closely related.
>> That said, with changes that we made to merge the Recommended Patch
>> Cluster and former Sun Alert Cluster (see Patch Corner - Merging the
>> Solaris Recommended and Sun Alert Patch Clusters<http://blogs.oracle.com/patch/entry/merging_the_solaris_recommended_and>for the details), we now only add the lowest revision of a patch required to
>> address SunAlert issues (Security, Data Loss and System Availability).
>> This means that over time customers need to apply less patches to keep up
>> to date with critical fixes.
>>
>> This is the reason that some patches in patchdiag.xref that are
>> Recommended are now longer the latest revs of patches.
>>
>> The only exception to this rule is patches required for the patch
>> utilities on Solaris to function correctly; these patches (eg. 119254) are
>> always kept at the latest available revision.
>>
>> HTH,
>> -Don
>>
>>
>>
>> Jeff wrote:
>>
>> I've been using the --minimal option for pca since it came out to
>> standardize patching based on the most recent CPU.  Today I noticed that is
>> looks like Oracle dropped support for in in patchdiag.xref.
>>
>> I'm using the patchdiag.xref I downloaded on May 15th and trying to apply
>> the patches from the April/2011 CPU using pca.  I find these patch
>> discrepancies between what is in the CPU and what is in patchdiag.xref:
>>
>> *April CPU    patchdiag*
>> 119254-80    119254-81
>> 122911-24    122911-25
>> 125215-03    125215-04
>> 141552-03    141552-04
>> 143559-07    143559-08
>> 144488-11    144488-14
>>
>> Previously, patdiag.xref would list both the version of the patch that was
>> in the CPU and the most recent version.
>>
>> Guess the question is to Martin or Don:  Do you know if this is
>> intentional?
>>
>> --
>> Jeff
>>
>>
>>  --
>>  <http://www.oracle.com/>
>> *Don O'Malley*
>>  Manager, Patch System Test
>> Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware
>> East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
>> Phone: +353 1 8199764
>> Team Alias: rpe_patch_system_test_ww at oracle.com
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jeff
>
>
> --
>  <http://www.oracle.com/>
> *Don O'Malley*
>  Manager,Patch System Test
> Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware
> East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
> Phone: +353 1 8199764
> Team Alias: rpe_patch_system_test_ww at oracle.com
>

-- 
Jeff
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