Patch Script Available

Joe Shamblin (wjs@cs.duke.edu)
Sat, 21 Jun 1997 00:12:24 -0400 (EDT)

I wrote a patch program that makes use of either the patchdiag.xref
file available to Sun contract customers, or the recommended patch
list available to anyone. The program is written in perl and requires
at least perl5 and several modules to run. The modules are
Data-Dumper, IO, MD5, and libnet. The program has several options
including down-loading the needed patches, comparing the checksums to
the Sun checksum file, and for the brave, automatic installation of the
patches. The other options follow:

USAGE: PatchReport [-A] [-a "ID/passwd"] [-cdFghi]
[-N "/path/to/recommended_list"] [-n]
[-p "/path/to/patches"] [-r]
[-S "/path/to/CHECKSUMS"]
[-s "message"] [-X "/path/to/patchdiag.xref"]

-A Prompt for account information
-a SunSolve "ID/passwd"
-c Prints patches which are current (UP)
-d Debugging option
-F Force patch installation without any questions
-g Grace period for shutdown (in seconds)
-h Prints this message and exits
-i Install patches
-N "/path/to/recommended_list"
-n No contract support (use Recommended patch list)
-p "/path/to/patches"
-r Retrieve patches
-S "/path/to/CHECKSUMS"
-s Shutdown with "Message"
-X "/path/to/patchdiag.xref"

Since the program uses the Net::FTP module it is straightforward to
add proxy/firewall support.

I have tested,as have others, the program many times on several
different Solaris OS revisions (sparc and x86) it seems to be robust,
but there might be a bug or two left :-). Also since the program calls
the installpatch program to install the patches it is unlikely to harm
your machine to use the automatic installation feature. But in general
patches should be evaluated on a case by case basis. So by default,
without the -F option, you will be prompted for the patches that you
desire to install. You can choose all, none, or simply give a list of
the patch IDs that you want installed.

You can pick up a copy from:

ftp://x86.cs.duke.edu/pub/PatchReport.

Please report any bugs or suggestions,

Joe

--
Joe Shamblin					wjs@cs.duke.edu
Systems	Administrator			Department of Computer Science
660-6582					Duke University