Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems (5900-3011, April 2013)
Table Of Contents
- Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems
- Contents
- 1 HP-UX patches and patch management
- 2 Quick start guide for patching HP-UX systems
- 3 HP-UX patch overview
- 4 Patch management overview
- Patch management life cycle
- HP service contracts
- Patch management and software change management strategies
- Establishing a software change management strategy
- Recommendations for software change management
- Consideration of HP patch rating
- Patch management and software depots
- Proactive patching strategy
- Reactive patching strategy
- Advanced topic: security patching strategy
- Advanced topic: scanning for security patches
- Testing the patches to be installed
- 5 What are standard HP-UX patch bundles?
- 6 Using the HP Support Center
- Obtaining an HPSC user account
- Useful pages on the HPSC
- Find individual patches
- Advanced topic: checking for special installation instructions
- Advanced topic: checking for all patch dependencies
- Standard patch bundles
- Custom patch bundles - run a patch assessment
- Support information digests
- Ask your peers in the forums
- Search knowledge base
- 7 Using software depots for patch management
- Common software distributor commands for patching
- Depot types
- Using depots
- Viewing depots
- Creating and adding to a directory depot
- Registering and unregistering directory depots
- Verifying directory depots
- Removing software from a directory depot
- Removing a directory depot
- Installing patches from a depot
- Custom patch bundles
- 8 Using HP-UX Software Assistant for patch management
- 9 Using Dynamic Root Disk for patch management
- 10 The Patch Assessment Tool
- 11 Support and other resources
- A Patch usage models
- Glossary
- Index
Advanced topic: displaying supersession information
By default, the swlist command does not show superseded patches, but you can use the
show_superseded_patches option to show them. Enter this command:
swlist -l patch -x show_superseded_patches=true
You can also use the HP-UX Patch Tool show_patches to show superseded patches. To show
superseded patches, enter this command:
show_patches -s
You can list the filesets that have directly superseded the filesets of a given patch installed on the
system. This is done by using the swlist command to show the superseded_by attribute of the
patch. In the following example, patch PHSS_27875 is superseded by patch PHSS_28681:
swlist -l level -a attribute \ -x option=valuepatch_id
For example:
$ swlist -l fileset -a superseded_by \
-x show_superseded_patches=true PHSS_27875
# Initializing...
# Contacting target "some_system"...
#
# Target: some_system:/
#
# PHSS_27875
PHSS_27875.X11-JPN-S-MSG PHSS_28681.X11-JPN-S-MSG,fa=HP-UX_B.11.11_32/64
PHSS_27875.X11-RUN-CL PHSS_28681.X11-RUN-CL,fa=HP-UX_B.11.11_32/64
PHSS_27875.X11-TCH-B-MSG PHSS_28681.X11-TCH-B-MSG,fa=HP-UX_B.11.11_32/64
You can also show the filesets that a given patch has superseded. These superseded filesets will
be listed whether or not they are installed on a system. This is done by using the swlist command
to list the supersedes attribute of the patch. Note that the first patch of any particular patch
supersession chain does not have a supersedes attribute. In the following example, patch
PHSS_28681 is shown to supersede patches PHSS_27875, PHSS_26498, and PHSS_25201.
(The output has been reformatted to improve readability.)
swlist -l level -a attributepatch_id
For example:
$ swlist -l fileset -a supersedes PHSS_28681
# Initializing...
# Contacting target "some_system"...
#
# Target: some_system:/
#
# PHSS_28681
PHSS_28681.X11-JPN-S-MSG
PHSS_27875.X11-JPN-S-MSG,fr=*
PHSS_26498.X11-JPN-S-MSG,fr=*
PHSS_28681.X11-RUN-CL
PHSS_27875.X11-RUN-CL,fr=*
PHSS_26498.X11-RUN-CL,fr=*
PHSS_25201.X11-RUN-CL,fr=*
PHSS_28681.X11-TCH-B-MSG
PHSS_27875.X11-TCH-B-MSG,fr=*
PHSS_26498.X11-TCH-B-MSG,fr=*
Advanced topic: supersession and the patch_state attribute
When a superseding patch is applied to a system, the superseded patch (if there was one) remains
on the system but is not active. Only the top patch of the chain is in the active (applied) state.
For more information about patch state, see “Patch state” (page 20).
28 HP-UX patch overview