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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">I’ve been closely watching the daily changes in the patchdiag.xref in the past 2 weeks.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">I’ve found a serious problem that will result in PCA not applying patches that should be applied if certain versions of patchdiag.xref are used.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">This is a timing/race issue where recommended patches are removed from the patchdiag.xref; then two days elapse; then the new patch is added.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">If PCA is used to install patches over that two day period, neither the old recommended patch nor the new recommended patch that replaced it is installed.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">Let’s look at four specific instances of this issue as it appeared this week.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">We run the command, “pca -l --minimal missingr” on one host, over a period of 4 days, on February 18, 19, 20, 21.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">The patchdiag.xref used was retrieved each morning, and has the dates: February 17, 18, 19, 20 respectively.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">We are not actually installing patches in this example. This example is for reporting purposes only.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">On the Feb. 18<sup>th</sup> report, we grep for patch “11866[67]|12513[67]”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">118666 38 < 41 RS- 14 JavaSE 5.0: update 39 patch (equivalent to JDK 5.0u39)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">118667 38 < 41 RS- 14 JavaSE 5.0: update 39 patch (equivalent to JDK 5.0u39), 64bit</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">125136 31 < 42 RS- 11 JavaSE 6: update 39 patch (equivalent to JDK 6u39)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">125137 31 < 42 RS- 11 JavaSE 6: update 39 patch (equivalent to JDK 6u39), 64bit</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">On the Feb. 19<sup>th</sup> report, the above four patches do not appear.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">On the Feb. 20<sup>th</sup> report, the above four patches do not appear.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">On the Feb. 21<sup>st</sup> report, we grep for the same patches:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">118666 38 < 42 RS- 3 JavaSE 5.0: update 40 patch (equivalent to JDK 5.0u40)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">118667 38 < 42 RS- 3 JavaSE 5.0: update 40 patch (equivalent to JDK 5.0u40), 64bit</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">125136 31 < 44 RS- 3 JavaSE 6: update 41 patch (equivalent to JDK 6u41)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">125137 31 < 44 RS- 3 JavaSE 6: update 41 patch (equivalent to JDK 6u41), 64bit</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">Please understand that I’m not complaining about the 2 days delay before the new patches show up as recommended in the patchdiag.xref file.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">I know that these new patch appearance delays are part of the release process and are inevitable.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">My complaint is only that the “old” patch is prematurely removed from the recommended list before the “new” one is added.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">This premature removal is breaking the patching process on my hosts.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">I’m patching hosts on February 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> with all the “Recommended patches” as of that date,
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">but these hosts now have a version of Java that is older than other hosts which were patched on Feb 18<sup>th</sup>. That’s not right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">The solution to this problem is to keep the older Java patch listed as recommended in the patchdiag.xref until the new patch is added to the same file.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">I can’t do this myself, Sun/Oracle needs to change the timing of the removal and add to be on the same date. Its OK if this date is 3 days after the patch is
released.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">Neil G. Brookins<br>
Identity and Authentication Solutions - IT Global Solutions</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">Towers Watson</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">1500 Market Street | Philadelphia, PA 19102</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF">Phone: +1 215 246 6046</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:8.0pt; font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; color:#091FBF"><a href="mailto:neil.brookins@towerswatson.com">neil.brookins@towerswatson.com</a></span></p>
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