[pca] PCA w/ LU 'n boot_archive

[Brookins, Neil (Philadelphia)]

I recently patched several servers following the general steps shown here:
http://probably.co.uk/patching-a-live-solaris-10-system-with-lu-zfs-and-pca.html

After experiencing a problem on one out of six servers, I found this page:
https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/entry/heads_up_on_kernel_patch
which states that manual update of boot archive is needed. (See issue #2 in the blog)

So, modifying the steps shown in the first web page above, with the new revelations from the second page,
I derive these possible steps:

...
# pca -i -R /.alt.patching

# rm -f /.alt.patching/platform/`uname -m`/boot_archive
# /.alt.patching/usr/sbin/bootadm -R /.alt.patching  update-archive

# luumount patching
...

Can anyone confirm that I'm on the right track here? I'm using ZFS root and non-global zones. I need to use LU to reduce end-user downtime.

BTW, the problem that I experienced after rebooting to the patched server, was that it printed many errors, and then it did panic and rebooted.
It seems to stay up now, but I don't trust it as much since the panic. I'm guessing that the file /kernel/drv/ipsecah.conf was not valid due to the boot archive not getting updated as a part of the patching process.

The error shown below repeated, each time with a different character inside the '' marks.

... genunix: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: Unexpected token '^H' on line 1 of /kernel/drv/ipsecah.conf
...
... genunix: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: Unexpected token '' on line 2 of /kernel/drv/ipsecah.conf
... last message repeated 1724 times
...
... savecore: [ID 570001 auth.error] reboot after panic: BAD TRAP: type=31 rp=2a10146eba0 addr=58 mmu_fsr=0 occurr
ed in module "ip" due to a NULL pointer dereference
...

Neil G. Brookins
Identity and Authentication Solutions - IT Global Solutions
Towers Watson
1500 Market Street | Philadelphia, PA 19102
Phone: +1 215 246 6046
neil.brookins at towerswatson.com<mailto:neil.brookins at towerswatson.com>




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