[Suns-at-Home] Patching a Solaris 9/SPARC system

[Sandwich Maker]

" From: Phillip Tong <pgt@myrealbox.com>
" 
" Okay - so I haven't been religiously patching my Ultra 2 (running 
" Solaris 9). But short of buying a support contract from Sun (and 
" therefore being able to download so much as a patch cluster!), what's 
" the easiest way people suggest patching a Solaris/SPARC box these days - 
" in particular, one that hasn't been patched in a while?
" 
" There's the Sun Update Connector (or similar-sounding name) but I'm not 
" even sure how to go about using that if that's the way to do it (yes I 
" already have a SunOnline login from way back and it still works... but 
" it doesn't have a SunSolve contract associated with it).
" 
" I'd upgrade this Ultra 2 to Solaris 10... if the CPUs were supported 
" (2x200MHz UltraSPARC). (On this front - can anybody confirm that Solaris 
" 10 will/won't work on this setup?)
" 
" Ideas? Or should I just amble along and download the odd patch or two as 
" I need to? (Heavens above should I rebuild a Sun box... how I patch that 
" box would be beyond me right now without a patch cluster).

you do not have to have a sunsolve -contract-, though they now insist
you have a sunsolve -account-.  many patches - iirc including the
cluster - are still available for free.

i still use patch check 1.2 and some home grown scripts - originally
with ftp, now sunfreeware wget - to get the latest patchdiag.xref, and
then d/l relevant patches, on a weekly basis.  btw it now appears they
update the xref daily.  it used to be weekly, and monthly before that.

also btw their example script 'getsolpatch.sh' and doc id #82023 have
a subtle error [at least for me] - wget will not authenticate to
sunsolve if you specify the domain name.  it will complain but work if
you hard-code sunsolve's ip.  the domain name does work in browsers.

i don't actually get around to installing patches more than
semi-annually...
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@an.bradford.ma.us                       and think what none thought