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 Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems > Chapter 3 HP-UX Patch Overview

Patch-Related Concepts
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Although patches are best known for delivering defect fixes, they can also deliver new functionality and features, enable new hardware, and update firmware. You should review the following patch-related concepts:

Patch Identification

HP assigns each HP-UX patch a unique identification or patch ID. Each HP-UX patch ID has the form PHXX_#####, where:

  • PH is an abbreviation for patch HP-UX

  • XX is replaced with one of the following values for the HP-UX area being patched:

    • CO = command patches

    • KL = kernel patches

    • NE = network patches

    • SS = patches related to all other subsystems

  • ##### is replaced with a unique four- or five-digit number.

    In general, the numeric portion of the patch ID is higher for more recently released patches.

HP-UX Software Structure

To understand some of the topics presented in this chapter, you should have a basic understanding of the structure of HP-UX software. Patches are part of this software structure. You will also need to use Software Distributor.

The following list provides an overview of the Software Distributor for HP-UX (SD-UX) software objects that compose HP-UX software.

  • Fileset

    • A fileset is a grouping of one or more files contained in a product. A fileset groups a subset of a product's files into a manageable unit.

    • Filesets include the files and control scripts that make up a product. For more information about control scripts, see the Software Distributor Administration Guide on the HP Technical documentation Web site at http://docs.hp.com.

    • Filesets must exist within a product.

    • Although a patch has a unique name, the names of the filesets contained in a patch match the corresponding base filesets that they patch.

  • Product

    • A product is a software object that is packaged and distributed for users to acquire and install.

    • Products are composed of one or more filesets and may additionally contain one or more control scripts.

    • A product can exist either within a bundle or as its own entity.

  • Bundle

    • A bundle is an encapsulation of products into a single software object.

    • Bundles are, sometimes, optional software objects.

    • Product objects are included in a bundle by reference only.

    • If the products within the bundle are all patches, the bundle is known as a patch bundle.

For more information about these software objects, see the Software Distributor Administration Guide on the HP Technical documentation Web site at http://docs.hp.com.

Patch Bundles

Patch bundles play an important role in patch management. A patch bundle is a collection of patches that have been grouped into a single software object to meet a specific need. Many HP-UX users find that acquiring and installing these bundles, as opposed to acquiring and installing patches individually, simplifies the patch management process.

Your first encounter with patch bundles might be with the standard HP-UX patch bundles. These bundles contain patches that HP has assembled to meet a specific need. For example, the basic purpose of Quality Pack patch bundles is to deliver defect-fix patches for proactive maintenance. HP releases updated versions of the bundles on a regular schedule and tests them to ensure a high level of reliability. Using standard HP-UX patch bundles can be a less error-prone and more efficient way to patch a system than acquiring and installing individual patches. For more information, see Chapter 5: “What Are Standard HP-UX Patch Bundles?”.

Each patch bundle includes all patch dependencies for the successful installation of all patches that apply to a system. Additionally, some patch bundles, such as HWEnable11i and FEATURE11i, deliver patches for the successful installation of product bundles that include I/O driver products, for example, USB-00. The selection of product bundles with patch dependencies will result in the automatic selection of required patches from the applicable patch bundle. This automatic selection of patch dependencies can simplify the management and installation of products or patches with patch dependencies.

Patch bundles also make it easier for you to determine the current level of patches on a system. For example, there could be hundreds of individual patches contained in an installed bundle, but the swlist command lists, by default, only the bundle name rather than each individual patch contained in the bundle.

For example, if you installed the December 2003 Quality Pack patch bundles on an HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11) system, output for the bundles would be similar to the following:

GOLDAPPS11i  B.11.11.0312.4 Gold Applications Patches for HP-UX 11i v1,
                            December 2003 
GOLDBASE11i  B.11.11.0312.4 Gold Base Patches for HP-UX 11i v1,
                            December 2003

For more information about listing the products on a system, see “Which Patches Are on a System?”.

You may also find yourself working with patch bundles if you use the ITRC Patch Assessment Tool, which allows you to create your own custom patch bundles. For more information, see Chapter 11: “Using Other Patch Tools”.

Software Depots and Patch Depots

Software depots, or simply depots, are an integral part of patch management. A depot is a special type of file or directory that has been formatted for use by SD-UX as a software repository. In the general case, depots contain a diverse array of software products. A depot can exist as a directory tree on a SD-UX file system or on CD or DVD media, and it can exist as a tape archive (tar) archive on serial media (tape). All depots share a single logical format, independent of the type of media on which the depot resides. Depots can reside on a local or remote system. You can package software directly into a depot or copy packaged software into the depot from elsewhere. This guide focuses on depots as repositories for patches and patch bundles. Such depots can be referred to as patch depots.

Patch depots are a very effective mechanism for managing patches. You can create your own custom patch depots to meet various patch management needs. You can also create special depots to be located on a patch server that acts as a source for patch or bundle installations on other systems.

HP uses patch depots to deliver patches and patch bundles. For more information about depots, see Chapter 8: “Using Software Depots for Patch Management”.

Patch Status

Patches have an associated status. The initial value of a patch's status does not change, but over the life of the patch modifiers may be added (as described in this section). You can find the value for a patch's status in the status field. This field is in the patch’s patch details page on the ITRC and in the patch text file. To obtain the most up-to-date values for patch status, use the patch details page. A patch status has the following values and modifiers to describe it.

Initial values for patch status include the following:

  • General Release (GR)

    HP has approved GR patches for widespread use.

  • Special Release (SR)

    HP intends an SR patch for limited distribution. It is available only through special channels.

Modifiers for patch status values include the following:

  • Superseded

    Indicates that the patch has been replaced by a newer patch. For more information about supersession, see “Ancestors and Supersession”.

    Results in the additional patch status values General Superseded and Special Superseded.

  • With Warnings

    Indicates that the patch has an associated warning. For more information about warnings, see “Patch Warnings”.

    Results in the additional patch status values General Release With Warnings and Special Release With Warnings.

Most patches have a status of General Release or General Superseded.

Patch State

A patch that has been installed on a target system is assigned an attribute called patch_state that provides information about a patch. For example, the patch_state tells you whether the patch has been committed or superseded. For more information about attributes, see “Patch-Related Attributes”.

There are four values for patch_state:

  • applied

    The patch is currently active on the system and is the most recent member of its supersession chain to have been loaded.

  • committed

    The patch's rollback files have been deleted, or the patch was installed without saving rollback files. The patch cannot be directly removed from the system. For more information about patch rollback, see “Patch Rollback and Commitment”.

  • superseded

    The patch has been superseded by another patch that has been installed on the system. The patch is no longer active. For more information about supersession, see “Ancestors and Supersession”.

  • committed/superseded

    The patch has been committed and superseded by another patch installed on the system.

    IMPORTANT: For HP-UX 11.0 systems, you must install patch PHCO_22526 or a superseding patch for proper functionality regarding the committed/superseded patch_state.

Use the following SD-UX commands to determine patch_state values:

  • Show the patch_state value for patch patch_id by entering this command:

    swlist -l fileset -a patch_state patch_id

  • Show the patch_state values for all patches on the local system by entering this command:

    swlist -l fileset -a patch_state *,c=patch

For more information regarding the swlist command, see “Which Patches Are on a System?”.

State

Filesets (patch and nonpatch) have an attribute called state that indicates the current installation state of a fileset. During installation, software is transitioned through the following states: transient, installed, and configured. During removal, software is transitioned through these states: configured, installed, and transient.

An SD-UX operation leaves a fileset in one of the following states:

  • installed

    Software has been successfully installed but not yet configured.

  • configured

    Software has been successfully installed and configured. No further operations are required.

  • corrupt

    SD-UX has encountered an unexpected condition during software installation checks.

  • transient

    When SD-UX moves software from one location to another, the software is in a transient state. If an interruption occurs during the transfer, the state remains transient.

For more information about these states, see the Software Distributor Administration Guide on the HP Technical documentation Web site at http://docs.hp.com.

Use the following swlist command to view the state associated with patch patch_id:

swlist -l fileset -a state | grep patch_id

For more information about the swlist command, see “Which Patches Are on a System?”.

Category Tags

Patches have categories, or category tags, associated with them to simplify the process of determining the general purpose of a specific patch. A patch may have multiple categories specified. This section provides a list of common patch categories. A patch always has the category tag patch.

Although you can use category tags in conjunction with several SD-UX commands, including the swinstall and swcopy commands, you should only use category tags with the swlist command.

Because of the cumulative nature of patches, many category tags for a patch are inherited from the patch's ancestors. Therefore, if patch A is created to deliver a critical fix, it will have a critical tag, and all patches superseding it will also have a critical tag.

You can determine patch categories for a given patch in the following ways:

  • Viewing the Category Tags field on the patch details page or in the text file for the patch.

  • Using the swlist command:

    swlist -l product -a category_tag patch_id

This command also shows any category tags that have been manually added to the patch by a user. For swlist examples that use category tags and for more information about the swlist command, see “Which Patches Are on a System?”.

The following list provides a subset of patch-related categories:

  • patch

    This category tag is always present for patches because software objects with the is_patch attribute set to true have the built-in, reserved category of patch. For more information about attributes, see “Patch-Related Attributes”.

  • hardware_enablement

    A patch that provides support for new hardware.

  • enhancement

    A patch that provides an enhancement.

  • special_release

    • A patch with restricted distribution, usually intended for installation by one specific customer or set of customers.

    • Information for special_release patches is not always available using the ITRC's Patch Database or other official HP information sources. However, you might encounter references to these patches when viewing information related to other patches.

    • A patch cannot inherit this tag.

  • critical

    • A patch that repairs a critical problem. For more information, see “Critical and Noncritical Patches”.

      A patch that has a critical tag also has one or more of the following tags: panic, halts_system, corruption, memory_leak.

  • firmware

    A patch that provides model-specific firmware updates.

  • manual_dependencies

    • A patch that contains one or more dependencies that are not enforced by SD-UX tools. For more information, see “Patch Dependencies”.

    • A patch cannot inherit this tag.



Chapter 3 HP-UX Patch Overview
  		 


Which Patches Are on a System?  
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