Software Distributor Administration Guide for HP-UX 11i

Managing Patches
Patch Management Tasks and Examples
Chapter 5174
Installing Patches to Kernel and Library Files
To permit patching of kernel files or libraries (e.g. libc.a), SD uses an
archive file type of a. When loading a file of type a, swinstall
temporarily installs the .o file to the target path specified, integrates it
into the archive specified by the archive_path attribute of the file, and
then removes the .o file.
If patch rollback is enabled (see “Patch Removal, Rollback, and
Committal” on page 179), the original .o file is automatically extracted
first and saved so that it can be replaced. Disk Space Analysis is
performed as needed to account for these operations.
Patch Load Order
If you install patch filesets and normal filesets in the same session, then
each patch fileset is considered to have an implied prerequisite on the
fileset that it is patching. For example, a product containing the patch
fileset is installed (or copied into serial distributions) after installation of
the one or more products that contain the patch’s ancestors.
If a base fileset has the is_kernel attribute set to true, then the fileset
patching it must also have the is_kernel attribute set to true to be
installed in the kernel phase of the execution. Otherwise, the patch is
installed along with other non-kernel filesets.
If a bundle contains both normal and patch filesets, the filesets are
installed in their normal order except that any ancestor fileset must be
installed before its patch or patches.
Updating Patched Software
Installation of a new version of a base fileset results in removal of all
filesets that patch the base fileset that you are replacing, along with any
files saved for potential rollback.
Installing Patches to Remote Systems
You can use the SD-UX remote operations features to install patches on
multiple remote systems. (See Chapter 6, “Remote Operations
Overview,” on page 189.) You can explicitly select patches for multiple
remote systems. Note, however, that the patch_match_target option
works with only one remote system at a time.