Software Distributor Administration Guide (March 2009)

Table Of Contents
This document and complete OS documentation is available on your HP-UX Instant
Information CD-ROM and at:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/os/11i/
2.1.4.2 Installing Patches
The swinstall command has a variety of patch management features, including a
patch management dialog in the GUI. See Chapter 5: “HP-UX Patching and Patch
Management” (page 133) for complete details on patches and using the swinstall
GUI patch features.
2.1.4.3 Recovering Updated Files
The autorecover_product option lets you automatically recover or roll back to
original product files if you start an install and the process fails.
When updating files, swinstall removes the original files as they are updated. If an
error occurs while swinstall is loading new filesets, the product being loaded is
marked as corrupt, the original files are lost, and you must repeat the installation.
By setting the autorecover_product option to true, all filesets that are updated are
first saved as backup copies. They are not removed until all filesets within the product
finish loading. If swinstall terminates because of an error, you can correct the error
then re-run swinstall. swinstall automatically continues the load process where
it was interrupted.
CAUTION: Most HP-UX products have preinstall and postinstall scripts without
accompanying undo scripts. This negates any advantage of using the
autorecover_products option. Use autorecover_products only with software
that has the associated undo scripts.)
2.1.4.4 Installing Software That Requires a System Reboot
Software packaged with the is_reboot attribute set to true requires the host to be
rebooted after the software is installed. However, when installing to alternate root file
systems, the host will not be rebooted.
If a local installation entails a reboot, the system reboots the target and the controller,
so there is no process left to report success or failure. (SD-UX does not automatically
reconnect to the target after a reboot.)
To find out if a software product requires the local host to be rebooted, get a description
of the software either from the Software Selection window, using the menu item Show
Description of Software, or from the Analysis dialog using the Product Summary
and Product Description buttons.
2.1 Installation with swinstall 65