SOLARIS SYSTEM PATCHING

Solaris machines should be patched on a frequency of once per month (or more if the security situation dictates.) Each month, Sun Microsystems compiles a cluster of their current patches and publishes them at http://patches.sun.com/clusters/. In this directory you will find the patchsets for each Sun operating system (i.e., To install the patchset on a particular Solaris box:

1. Download the appropriate patchset to the machine you want to update.
2. Become root and unzip the files (e.g. "unzip 8_Recommended.zip).
3. Change directory into the patchset directory (e.g. 8_Recommend).
4. Run the command "./install_cluster -q".
5. After the patchset is installed, reboot the machine.

Note: Typically, patchsets should be installed on a test machine before you install them throughout your group.

Patchsets also should be installed in "Single User mode", however this restriction is often not necessary unless your machines are actively being used. We tend to patch after hours when users know the machine will be rebooted so they will have no jobs running on them.

If you have more than a few Solaris machines, you may want to create an administrative NFS mount on one machine. Download and unzip the patchset on the administrative mount. On the administrative machine, write a simple script that prompts for a password, ssh's to the machine(s) with it, slides to root, mounts that patchset directory, and runs "install_cluster -q". You can then loop this script through all of your Solaris machines.

BACK TO TOP

© 2005 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. All rights reserved.