[geeks] Access to Sun Security Patches for Solaris 10

[Mike F]

On Dec 28, 2006, at 3:51 PM, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 01:42:50PM -0500, Ido Dubrawsky wrote:
>> Hmmm...I recall that Sun used to allow access to their security  
>> patches for
>> people without Sun Support contracts.  I'm trying to download  
>> their Recommended
>> and Security patches (i.e. the big 10_Recommended.zip file) and  
>> apparently
>> I cannot.  Also, I'm trying to use their getsolpatch.sh script but  
>> in order
>> to do that I have to create a list of the security patches that I  
>> want to
>> download and install...but in order to get that list I apparently  
>> have to have
>> a support contract (seems like a catch 22 situation here).  Am I  
>> missing
>> something or will I just have to breakdown and get the cheapest  
>> support
>> contract out there?
>
> You just need a Sunsolve account (free), not a support contract.
>
> Register a Sunsolve account, then set up "smpatch" on the Sol10 boxes
> with your Sunsolve account details.  Then all you have to do is  
> "smpatch
> update" and all available, applicable patches will be applied.   
> (there's
> also a GUI, I think "updatemanager", that makes it even easier -  
> especially
> the initial setup-with-account-details part)
>
> Bill
>

Another automated patching alternative is pca, http:// 
www.par.univie.ac.at/solaris/pca/

pca is a perl script - edit it to include your Sunsolve account  
details and go. It downloads the patch xref file from Sun, compares  
it to your installed packages and patches, and only downloads patches  
applicable to your system. It's a lot quicker than using a patch  
cluster, and you could even automate it.

- Mike