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

Table 4 Subset of fields in patch text file and patch details page (continued)
DescriptionField
A listing of the categories associated with this patch. For more information, see
“Category tags” (page 21).
Category Tags
The symptoms of the problem.Symptoms
A detailed description of the defect.Defect Description
This is set to Y if the patch is an enhancement.Enhancement
All patches that this patch depends upon for proper operation. You must install
the listed patches if you are installing this patch. For more information, see
“Patch dependencies” (page 32).
Patch Dependencies
The specific system models to which this patch is applicable.Hardware Dependencies
The various dependencies that cannot be described in a simple manner. For
example, dependencies that are needed only under specific circumstances will
be listed here. For more information, see “Patch dependencies” (page 32).
Other Dependencies
A list of all patches replaced, or superseded, by this patch. For more
information, see “Ancestors and supersession” (page 26).
Supersedes
The standard installation instructions common to all patches.Installation Instructions
Any special instructions not included in those mentioned previously. This field
occasionally includes dependency information.
Special Installation Instructions
The patch family tree browser shows the lineage for a specified patch. The root
of the tree (the top-most patch) is the latest patch in the patch chain. Its
Patch Family Tree
predecessors are shown beneath it, indented to the right with an arrow symbol
pointing to the succeeding patch. Patches at the same indentation level that
point to the same patch have the same successor.
Advanced topic: the readme attribute
Each patch has an SD-UX attribute called readme that you can view using the swlist command.
See “Patch-related attributes” (page 30) for more information about attributes. The readme attribute
contains the patch's original text file. Be aware that, although the readme attribute allows you to
quickly and conveniently access information about patches on the system, this information is static.
Because of this, the readme will not contain more current information.
For example, even if a patch has an associated warning, the readme file won’t contain a Warning
field. Because the command returns a large amount of text, you might want to either redirect the
output to a file or pipe the output to the more command, as follows:
swlist -l product -a readme patch_id | more
You can use other variations of the swlist command to obtain thereadme information for multiple
patches. For example, if you want to obtain the readme information for all patches on the local
system that have manual dependencies, you can use the following command (output is redirected
to the manual.txt file):
swlist -l product -a readme *,c=manual_dependencies
> manual.txt
Obtaining information using the HPSC
The HPSC's Patch Database is the best resource for acquiring information about a specific patch.
Consult Chapter 2: “Quick start guide for patching HP-UX systems” (page 9) and Chapter 6:
“Using the HP Support Center” (page 57) for more information about using the Patch Database,
including information about downloading patches and satisfying dependencies.
Finding information for a specific patch 39