What is the difference between solaris patch version(Example :142900-15) and solaris update version (Example: u8). When do we apply

solar...@gmail.com

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Apr 20, 2013, 10:12:03 AM4/20/13

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What is the difference between solaris patch version(Example :142900-15) and solaris update version (Example: u8 0r u9 ). When do we apply solaris patch and when do we apply solaris update version. any help greatly appreciated :)

cindy swearingen

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Apr 20, 2013, 1:05:08 PM4/20/13

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On Apr 20, 8:12 am, solaris...@gmail.com wrote:
> What is the difference between solaris patch version(Example :142900-15) and solaris update version (Example: u8 0r u9 ). When do we apply solaris patch and when do we apply solaris update version. any help greatly appreciated :)

The gist of the difference is described like this:

The only difference is that the Solaris Update Patch Bundle doesn't
include new packages included in the Solaris Update, which may be
required for some new features.

See Gerry Haskin's blog and the link to a patch presentation (PDF)
that describes more details:

https://blogs.oracle.com/patch/entry/patch_presentation_for_customers

Thanks, Cindy

YTC#1

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Apr 20, 2013, 1:39:32 PM4/20/13

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Patching does not equal upgrade.

When you upgrade you get a kernel with "fresh bit" patches, they are
compiled in.

As a rule new Solaris features are not delivered with patches (but I
think ZFS broke that one IIRC).

--
Bruce Porter
"The internet is a huge and diverse community but mainly friendly"
http://blog.maui.co.uk/index.php/ytc/
There *is* an alternative! http://www.openoffice.org/

Casper H.S. Dik

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Apr 21, 2013, 5:14:42 AM4/21/13

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cindy swearingen <cindy.sw...@gmail.com> writes:

>The gist of the difference is described like this:

>The only difference is that the Solaris Update Patch Bundle doesn't
>include new packages included in the Solaris Update, which may be
>required for some new features.

With some exceptions (e.g., there is a ZFS genesis patch as part
of the Recommended Patch bundle; this adds ZFS through just
adding patches)

So in principle, there is little difference between
upgrade + latest patches vs just installing latest patches;
but because of the difference we only support certain features
when /etc/release has a certain version or later.

With Solaris 11, the distinction is completely gone.

That's why the SRU releases for Solaris 11.0 end a few months
after Solaris 11.1 is released.

The only choice you have now is moving forward or not moving
forward. Before, the decision tree was huge as you can opt
out of certain patches or add more patches.

For Solaris 11 customers it is much easier to maintain Solaris;
for engineering, there is just one set of bits that needed to be
tested (of course, we did not test all the possible combinations
of patches before but now we no longer need to do so)

The other important bug in Solaris 10 and earlier is now also gone:
if you had patched your system and you then install a package, then
it was possible that patches should have patched that package but
because it wasn't installed no patch for that package was installed.

In Solaris 11, you install the patched package from the repository
and you can only install the patched version.

Casper