Software Distributor Administration Guide for HP-UX 11i

Reliability and Performance
Multiple Versions
Chapter 8254
Additionally, you can list a fully qualified software spec containing both
the location and revision as well as the other version distinguishing
attributes (vendor and architecture) with:
swlist -l fileset -a software_spec
After the new version is installed successfully for all products or on all
hosts, the old version can be unconfigured, and the new version
configured as the active version by using swconfig -u with the old
version and swconfig with the new version.
NOTE By default, only one version of the software is allowed to be configured at
a time.
The second version can not be configured until the first one is
unconfigured. As was discussed in “Installation With Separate
Configuration” on page 252, installing a second version automatically
excludes configuring the new version.
You must manually unconfigure the old version, then configure the new
version. If the software supports multiple configured versions (in
addition to multiple installed versions) the
swconfig.allow_multiple_versions option can be set to true.
In case of any problems, the old version can be restored as the active
version by unconfiguring the new version and reconfiguring the old (i.e.,
by swconfig -u with the new version and swconfig with the old version).
In order to support multiple versions, the software must be structured so
that all files are below the product directory, and the configure scripts
need to be written with multiple version support in mind. In a simple
example, the configure script could add a symbolic link from
/usr/bin/foo to $SW_LOCATION/bin/foo, and the unconfigure script
could remove that link. In this example, configuring and unconfiguring
each version of this software is easily done.
NOTE The use of allow_multiple_versions=true command option and the
l=<alternate location> software specification is not supported when
updating HP-UX to a new version.