Repost: Solaris Live Upgrade: questions about /var/sadm

by **G Dahler** » Sat, 05 Feb 2005 00:25:00 GMT

Sorry for the report, seems like my news reader misbehaved (Ah, MSFT!)

 According to the solaris FAQ:

--------8<-----------------

|3.40) Why does installing patches take so much space in /var/sadm?

    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.

    Alternatively, you can install a patch w/o saving the old
    files by using the "-d" flag to installpatch.

|3.41) Do I need to back out previous versions of a patch?

    No, unless otherwise stated in the patch README.
    If the previous patch installation saved the old
    files, you may want to reclaim that space.

    Patches can be backed out with (Solaris 2.6+):
     patchrm <patch-id>

    or in earlier releases:

     /var/sadm/patch/<patch-id>/backoutpatch <patch-id>

    Backoutpatch can take an awful long time, especially when the
    patch contained a lot of files.  This is fixed in later versions
    of backoutpatch.

---------------->8---------------------------

Prior to doing the live upgrade, I would like to minimize the size of my
root partition
(containing /var in my case) Can I safely remove all patches (not just the
save directories)
from /var/sadm/patches or will live upgrade do it automatically ?

I presume that after a solaris upgrade, the liste of installed patches on
the system will be NULL ?

Another last point, does "back out patch" mean to go back to the state
BEFORE the patch was applied ?
I don't understand the 3.41 paragraph. What does it mean ? It seems to mean
that whenever you apply a new
patch, you should go back to the previous version before installing ?

Ex: Original package = blabla-01

Apply patch blabla-02  (BlaBla-01 saved)

You now want to apply patch blabla-03.

Does question 3.41 ask: "if you need to install patch blabla-03 you should
first back ou to blabla-01 ?"

If so, what do you do if the README tells you that you have to, but you
REMOVED the save directory ?

Thanks !

by **Michael Tosch** » Sat, 05 Feb 2005 02:47:51 GMT

Dahler wrote:

You can empty the save directories:
rm -r /var/sadm/pkg/*/save/*

this saves a lot (check with du -sk /var/sadm/pkg/*/save), and afterwards you
cannot backout any patch (where each patch occupies a few kilobytes in /var/sadm).
Everything else is not worth the effort.
Only if you are paranoid (check with du -sk /var/sadm/patch), do
rm -r /var/sadm/patch/*

You dont want to backout (patchrm) patches on your fallback OS, because 1. it
takes you too long, and 2. you would turn it into an unstable OS.

Small. showrev -p will also list integrated patches (where each patch occupies a
few hundred bytes in /var/sadm).

Yes.

This is the question in 3.41, and the answer in 3.41 is: no.

No!

I have seen few special patches called "point patches" and "T-patches". Point
patches I have not seen since some years. T-patches are sent to you for testing,
if you have opened a bug report with Sun.
Both are never in the Sun patch clusters.

One advise from experience:
when you install a brand new patch cluster, install it with the backout option
(default).
In case there is a bad patch, you have the possibility to back it out.
When you system runs stable for some time, or just before installing the next
patch cluster, you may empty the /var/sadm/pkg/*/save directories.

--
Michael Tosch @ hp : com

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