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I just installed Patch Manager 2.0 on a few Solaris 8 boxes.
It appears to run correctly on all but two of them. On those
two machines, it lists nearly 500 patches that need to be
installed -- they already are installed? Any idea what might
be going on here?
--
Jeff Wieland

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:06:19 +0000, Jeff Wieland wrote:

> I just installed Patch Manager 2.0 on a few Solaris 8 boxes.
> It appears to run correctly on all but two of them. On those
> two machines, it lists nearly 500 patches that need to be
> installed -- they already are installed? Any idea what might
> be going on here?

I use pca, google for it. Never an issue with it for me.

Steve

In article <pan.2006.03.17.16.36.09.430361@SPAMmac.com> Steve <stek1961NO@SPAMmac.com> writes:
>On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:06:19 +0000, Jeff Wieland wrote:
>
>> I just installed Patch Manager 2.0 on a few Solaris 8 boxes.
>> It appears to run correctly on all but two of them. On those
>> two machines, it lists nearly 500 patches that need to be
>> installed -- they already are installed? Any idea what might
>> be going on here?
>
>I use pca, google for it. Never an issue with it for me.
>
>Steve

But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
distribution?
--
Jeff Wieland

Jeff Wieland wrote:
> In article <pan.2006.03.17.16.36.09.430361@SPAMmac.com> Steve <stek1961NO@SPAMmac.com> writes:
>> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:06:19 +0000, Jeff Wieland wrote:
>>
>>> I just installed Patch Manager 2.0 on a few Solaris 8 boxes.
>>> It appears to run correctly on all but two of them. On those
>>> two machines, it lists nearly 500 patches that need to be
>>> installed -- they already are installed? Any idea what might
>>> be going on here?
>> I use pca, google for it. Never an issue with it for me.
>>
>> Steve
>
> But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
> distribution?
> --
> Jeff Wieland

Look for something wrong in /var/sadm/
Just had a similar case, patchdiag returned a very large list of needed
patches. Turned out there was a mail file in /var/sadm/pkg/ .
showrev -p returned weird results. Trussing showrev -p and looking at
opens, found a outbox file removed it. showrev -p and patchdiag are
back to normal.

Bill

In article <CdLSf.20574$X.15404@news-wrt-01.rdc-nyc.rr.com> Bill Goodridge <billgood@nyc.rr.com> writes:
>Jeff Wieland wrote:
>> In article <pan.2006.03.17.16.36.09.430361@SPAMmac.com> Steve <stek1961NO@SPAMmac.com> writes:
>>> On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 16:06:19 +0000, Jeff Wieland wrote:
>>>
>>>> I just installed Patch Manager 2.0 on a few Solaris 8 boxes.
>>>> It appears to run correctly on all but two of them. On those
>>>> two machines, it lists nearly 500 patches that need to be
>>>> installed -- they already are installed? Any idea what might
>>>> be going on here?
>>> I use pca, google for it. Never an issue with it for me.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>
>> But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
>> distribution?
>> --
>> Jeff Wieland
>
>Look for something wrong in /var/sadm/
>Just had a similar case, patchdiag returned a very large list of needed
>patches. Turned out there was a mail file in /var/sadm/pkg/ .
>showrev -p returned weird results. Trussing showrev -p and looking at
>opens, found a outbox file removed it. showrev -p and patchdiag are
>back to normal.
>
>Bill

I did grab pca and run it. It does look pretty useful -- it found
a patch for GNOME 2 that smpatch didn't, the 64 bit libpng patch.
On one of the problem servers, it found a corrupt patch-related
file. Since this was for a piece of hardware I no longer use, I
removed the related packages. But, smpatch still doesn't work
correctly. I'm attempting to verify the contents of /var/sadm/,
but so far I haven't found anything wrong.

I could probably get by with pca, but smpatch should work, and it
bugs me that it doesn't. It indicates that something is amiss.
--
Jeff Wieland

In article <dvf5oh$k2t$1@mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu>,
Jeff Wieland <wieland@nospampurdue.edu> wrote:
>But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
>distribution?

Should Sun yet again break the interface that pca and countless homegrown
tools use to fetch patchdiag.xref and the public and contract-only patches,
I would hope that the customer rabble would be waiting at Don Grantham
and company's doorstep with torches and pitch forks in hand.

John
groenveld@acm.org

In article <dvi6aq$gu6$1@neuromancer.cse.psu.edu> groenvel@cse.psu.edu (John D Groenveld) writes:
>In article <dvf5oh$k2t$1@mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu>,
>Jeff Wieland <wieland@nospampurdue.edu> wrote:
>>But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
>>distribution?
>
>Should Sun yet again break the interface that pca and countless homegrown
>tools use to fetch patchdiag.xref and the public and contract-only patches,
>I would hope that the customer rabble would be waiting at Don Grantham
>and company's doorstep with torches and pitch forks in hand.
>
>John
>groenveld@acm.org

I'm very impressed with pca. It works on every Solaris box I've tried
it on so far. It even found a security patch that smpatch (and PatchPro
Expert) missed. Plus it only needs perl (and wget) to run.

As far as speed goes, it takes about 10 seconds to run a check for new
patches on my 1.5 GHz SB1500. It takes about 45 seconds to run on my
old 170 MHz Ultra 1, which is decently fast on that machine.
--
Jeff Wieland

John D Groenveld wrote:
> In article <dvf5oh$k2t$1@mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu>,
> Jeff Wieland <wieland@nospampurdue.edu> wrote:
> >But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
> >distribution?
> Should Sun yet again break the interface that pca and countless homegrown
> tools use to fetch patchdiag.xref and the public and contract-only patches,
> I would hope that the customer rabble would be waiting at Don Grantham
> and company's doorstep with torches and pitch forks in hand.

If it is he who is responsible for this utter cock up thus far,
I have to ask - somewhat rhetorically:
how is it that he ain't been sacked...? As they say in England.
I could use a service plan for what I do,
but no way am I forking out money for what I've seen so far : <

On 2006-03-19 15:33:57 +0000, Jeff Wieland <wieland@nospampurdue.edu> said:

> In article <dvi6aq$gu6$1@neuromancer.cse.psu.edu> groenvel@cse.psu.edu
> (John D Groenveld) writes:
>> In article <dvf5oh$k2t$1@mailhub227.itcs.purdue.edu>,
>> Jeff Wieland <wieland@nospampurdue.edu> wrote:
>>> But will pca continue to work with the coming changes at Sun w.r.t patch
>>> distribution?
>>
>> Should Sun yet again break the interface that pca and countless homegrown
>> tools use to fetch patchdiag.xref and the public and contract-only patches,
>> I would hope that the customer rabble would be waiting at Don Grantham
>> and company's doorstep with torches and pitch forks in hand.
>>
>> John
>> groenveld@acm.org
>
> I'm very impressed with pca. It works on every Solaris box I've tried
> it on so far. It even found a security patch that smpatch (and
> PatchPro Expert) missed. Plus it only needs perl (and wget) to run.
>
> As far as speed goes, it takes about 10 seconds to run a check for new
> patches on my 1.5 GHz SB1500. It takes about 45 seconds to run on my
> old 170 MHz Ultra 1, which is decently fast on that machine.

Glad to help Jeff, I know from experience that Sun have broken most
patching automation, pca seems to do it mostly right....

Steve

In article <1142801379.765837.44230@t31g2000cwb.googlegroups. com>,
gerryt@ <gerryt@vcn.bc.ca> wrote:
>If it is he who is responsible for this utter cock up thus far,

<URL:http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/ceo/mgt_grantham.html>
<URL:http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/analyst/sas2006/09_Grantham_SAS_06.pdf>

>I have to ask - somewhat rhetorically:
>how is it that he ain't been sacked...? As they say in England.

Sacked? He's been given a larger stove-pipe to manage.
<URL:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/22/aduva_goes_sun/>
<URL:http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2006-03/sunflash.20060314.4.xml>

>I could use a service plan for what I do,
>but no way am I forking out money for what I've seen so far : <

The risk of putting the cart before the horse, even if its to spur
much needed institutional reform, is that you alienate current and
potential customers.

The move to the Sun Update Connection Solaris-sustaining recurring
revenue subscription business model has been a debacle. I'm surprised
its escaped the attention of the business press.

John
groenveld@acm.org