Be careful removing patch save directories in Solaris 10

[Gary Mills]

I had an incident recently where zone creation failed on a Solaris 10
machine. The symptom was that the zone install only copied a few
packages to the new zone, and that the zone failed to boot. This
turned out to be the result of an earlier incident where /var filled
up while I was installing patches. To make some space, I had removed
the patch save files, following these instructions from a Solaris 10
FAQ:

All the files that are replaced by a patch are stored under
/var/sadm/patch/<patch-id>/save so the patch can be safely
backed out. Newer patches will save the old files
under /var/sadm/pkg/<pkg>/save/<patch-id>/undo.Z, for each package
patches.

You can remove the <patchdir>/save directory provided you also
remove the <patchdir>/.oldfilessaved file. Newer patches will not
install a .oldfilessaved file.

However, in Solaris 10, the file structure is more like this, taking
a typical example:

/var/sadm/pkg/SUNWaccu/save/pspool/SUNWaccu/save/117465-02/undo.Z

Note the two `save' directories. I can't be sure, but I suspect that
I removed the first one, rather than the second. Apparently, the
`pspool' directories are required by the zone installation command,
and that's what caused the subsequent misbehavior of zone creation on
the machine. Reinstalling it with larger disks has resolved the
problem.

To avoid problems like this, ensure that /var is large enough on
Solaris 10 machines. Four gigs is probably the minumum.

--
-Gary Mills- -Unix Support- -U of M Academic Computing and Networking-

[Martin Paul]

Gary Mills <mi...@cc.umanitoba.ca> wrote:
> However, in Solaris 10, the file structure is more like this, taking
> a typical example:
>
> /var/sadm/pkg/SUNWaccu/save/pspool/SUNWaccu/save/117465-02/undo.Z

This reminds me of a question I wanted to ask myself before: Under
Solaris 10, at least some patches keep two versions of the same undo.Z
file. Here's an example:

2066633 Feb 24 08:42 SUNWmdb/save/118822-30/undo.Z
2066633 Feb 24 08:42 SUNWmdb/save/pspool/SUNWmdb/save/118822-30/undo.Z

Is this a bug or by intention (and if so, why ?). It's definitely a waste
of disk space, after all.

mp.
--
Systems Administrator | Institute of Scientific Computing | Univ. of Vienna