Hi! This is Islam.
This is my first writing in CONEXTIVO Staff Blog since I have joined.

By the way, today is the last working day of the year. At the end of this year I had a tough time of working with Solaris 10 on Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 System. The major part of my work was to update the system with current Recommended Patch Clusters.

This is a very crucial process and might require again and again; therefore, I have decided to store the information for future reference. Hope some day some one will be benefited from this article.

The following is a step-by-step method for retrieving and installing Solaris Recommended Patch Clusters.

Step 1: Download the latest Patch Cluster and README.

Download Site:
ftp://patches.sun.com/patchroot/clusters/10_Recommended.zip
ftp://patches.sun.com/patchroot/clusters/10_Recommended.README

Step 2: View the README file before proceeding with Cluster installation.

Step 3: Move the Patch Cluster archive onto a file system with sufficient free space in which to extract the archive.

4. Extract the Patch Cluster archive.
To extract a .zip file, run:
$ unzip $FILE.zip

To extract a .tar.Z file, run:
$ zcat $FILE.tar.Z | tar xvf -

5. Login as the root user on the system console, and bring the system to single-user mode.

N.B: Patch Cluster installation may be performed in multi-user mode. However, it may cause problems with running programs and services.

For single-user mode type:
# init S

6. Backup the configuration files for the Sun SCSI disk (sd) and SCSI tape (st) drivers.

# cp /kernel/drv/sd.conf /kernel/drv/sd.conf.pre_cluster_installation
# cp /kernel/drv/st.conf /kernel/drv/st.conf.pre_cluster_installation

N.B: Patch Cluster installation will overwrite the drivers' configuration files. If your system uses SCSI disks with non-zero LUNs (common with RAIDs or external storage arrays) or "wide" SCSI tape devices (i.e. SCSI IDs 8-15), these devices will not be recognized by the operating system after system reboot.

7. Install the Recommended Patch Cluster.
$ cd $PATCH_CLUSTER_DIRECTORY
# ./install_cluster

During Cluster installation, one may see failures when installing individual patches.

Example:
Installation of patch failed. Return code 2.
Installation of patch failed. Return code 8.

Return code 2: The patch has already been installed.
Return code 8: The patch is for a package that is not installed on your system.
These return codes may be safely ignored.

For information on other return codes, examine the /usr/sbin/patchadd file.

8. Restore the Sun SCSI disk and SCSI tape driver configuration files.

# mv /kernel/drv/sd.conf.pre_cluster_installation /kernel/drv/sd.conf
# mv /kernel/drv/st.conf.pre_cluster_installation /kernel/drv/st.conf

9. Reboot the system.
# shutdown -i6 -g0 -y

To shutdown the sytem.
# init 5

Verify your new patch level with the #showrev command.
To list of all patches installed on the system, run the #showrev -p command.

That’s all for today!

Wish you all a Happy New Year!!