Patch Management User Guide for HP-UX 11.x Systems (5900-3011, March 2013)

• 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 HPSC'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” (page 37).
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” (page 32).
◦ A patch cannot inherit this tag.
Which patches are on a system?
SD-UX is included with the HP-UX operating system and provides a powerful set of tools for
centralized HP-UX software management. Many SD-UX commands start with sw; for example:
swlist, swinstall, swreg, swremove, swcopy, and swverify. For more information about
SD-UX, see the Software Distributor Administration Guide on the HP Business Support Center
website at http://www.hp.com/go/sd-docs.
The swlist command can be invaluable in determining which patches and patch bundles are
on an HP-UX system. You can use the swlist command to display information about software
products that are installed on a local or remote host, or that are stored in a local or remote depot.
You can use the various command arguments and options to customize the information returned.
See the swlist(1M) manpage.
This section presents some examples of swlist to display information about patches, bundles,
and depots.
NOTE: For brevity and improved readability, some lines of SD-UX command output have been
shortened or removed.
Examples of the swlist command
Use the swlist command with no arguments to get a default listing of all top-level software
installed on the local host:
swlist
For example:
$ swlist
# Initializing...
# Contacting target "some_system"...
#
# Target: some_system:/
22 HP-UX patch overview