This chapter provides an overview of the concepts and features of patch
kits for the Tru64 UNIX operating system and TruCluster Software (TCR) products.
1.1 Overview
Patch kits provide interim maintenance that prevents the occurrence of known critical problems with the Tru64 UNIX operating system and the TruCluster Software products. These kits, which are distributed as needed, contain the following elements:
Version-specific patches and patch-specific documentation
A patch-management utility for installing, viewing, removing, and managing patches
Patch kits are not intended to provide general maintenance and new functions;
applying them to your system does not obviate the need to upgrade to later
versions of Tru64 UNIX and TCR.
1.1.1 Applicability of Patch Kits
Patch kits are applicable to a specific version of the software products,
unless stated otherwise in the patch kit release notes.
You cannot install
version-specific kits on other software versions.
Compaq recommends
that you install all of the patches included in the kits and that you update
the TCR products (if applicable) at the same time you update your operating
system.
1.1.2 Types of Patches
Compaq provides two kinds of patch kits for its Tru64 UNIX and TCR software products -- release kits and customer-specific kits:
Release patches
These patches provide interim maintenance that prevent the occurrence of known critical problems. Release patches (also referred to as official patches) are provided in kits, grouped by software product versions such as DIGITAL UNIX V4.0D, Tru64 UNIX 5.0, and TCR 1.6. The following are features of release patch kits:
Provide selective patch installation and removal
Use
dupatch
for installing, viewing, removing,
and managing patches
Are provided on the Internet or CD-ROM
Customer-specific patches (CSPs)
These patches are provided by your service provider in response to Tru64 UNIX or TCR problems that are specific to your own system's hardware and software configuration. CSP kits have the following features:
Generally use the
dupatch
utility for installing,
viewing, removing, and managing patches
May contain patches for one or more software products. For example, a single tar file may contain patches for DIGITAL UNIX 4.0E, DIGITAL UNIX 4.0F, Tru64 UNIX 5.0, TCR1.5, and TCR1.6
May require release patches but do not contain any release patches
Tru64 UNIX and TCR release patch kits are available from the Internet and on CD-ROM. CSP patch kits are are provided by Compaq service providers.
Patch Kits on the Internet
Patch kits are available publicly on the Internet through the Compaq Services Web page located at:
http://www.support.compaq.com/patches
Patches distributed over the Internet are provided in a tar file that you must unpack on your system or on an NFS mountable file system.
The tar file for each operating system version will contain patch kits for that version of the operating system and patch kits for the applicable TruCluster Software Products. For example, the Tru64 UNIX 4.0F and TruCluster 1.6 patch tar file contains the Tru64 UNIX 4.0F and TCR 1.6 patch kits.
The content of each patch tar file is summarized in the 00-READ-ME-FIRST file contained in the tar file. This letter should be the first thing you read after unpacking the tar file.
The Tru64 UNIX Patch CD-ROM contains all of the latest patch kits for the supported versions of Tru64 UNIX and TCR. The patch kits on the CD-ROM are provided in an expanded form (rather than a tar file) so they can be installed directly from the disk. The 00-READ-ME-FIRST file on the CD-ROM lists the contents of the disk and provides other information.
You can order a Patch CD-ROM in the United States can by calling 1-800-344-4825 (1-800-ATCOMPAQ); customers in other countries should contact your local Compaq sales office or authorized reseller for pricing and availability. The order number is QA-MT4AW-H8.
Each patch kit contains the following components:
Documentation
The
Patch Summary and Release Notes, which contains summaries
and full descriptions of the problems that the patches correct, and provides
any information you may need to know about specific patches.
The information
in this document also exists in separate files that you can access using the
dupatch
utility.
(See
Section 2.3.)
The Installation Instructions (the manual you are reading) is common to all patch kits.
Both of these manuals are provided in PDF and HTML formats. The PDF version is easy to view and print using Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is provided on the Documentation CD-ROM that ships with Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0E and higher, and is also available at the Adobe Web site (http://www.adobe.com/). The HTML version is viewed with your Internet browser, such as Netscape.
Patch management utility (dupatch
)
Installs, removes, and manages patches for Tru64 UNIX and TCR. This utility is installed and left on the system through the successful installation of a patch kit.
Patch subsets for the operating system and TruCluster Server products.
A patch is a collection of files that contain fixes to problems. When possible, patches are merged together, into one patch, if they have intersecting files or codependencies. A patch may correct one or more problems.
Each patch is packaged in its own
setld
subset.
The subsets are managed by a utility named
dupatch
.
Each patch kit contains all of the product version-specific patches available at the time of its manufacture. You can selectively install and remove each patch.
Note
Even though selective patch installation capabilities exist, Compaq recommends that you install all patches in each kit for Tru64 UNIX and TCR to prevent the occurrence of known and corrected software problems.
When you obtain a patch kit from the Internet, the kit is provided in a single tar file, which you must expand to install. Figure 1-1 illustrates the contents of this file. The Tru64 UNIX Patch CD-ROM provides patch kits for several versions of the operating system, and each kit is already expanded.
The contents of the tar file will vary, depending on the type of kit. For example a CSP kit might contain patches for several operating system versions, while release patch kits always contain patches for only one operating system version. Also, the tar file may, or may not contain TCR patches. However, the structure of the tar file is the same for each type of kit.
Figure 1-1: Structure of a Patch Kit Tar File
You run
dupatch
to install, remove, and manage release
patches for the Tru64 UNIX operating system and TCR.
After you install
the patches, the following items are left on the system:
The
dupatch
utility (/usr/sbin/dupatch
)
Patch-specific documentation that you can view with
dupatch
Optionally, the archived system files that were updated by the installed patches
The following sections describe the syntax for the names of the
patch kits .
1.3 Patch Kit Naming
The naming conventions for release patch kits and for CSP kits are slightly
different.
1.3.1 Release Patch Kit Naming
Release patch kit names have the following syntax:
OS Product
|
Version
|
KitType
|
Kit#
|
-MfgDate
|
.FileType
The following list describes the attributes currently used in patch kit names:
DU = DIGITAL UNIX
T64 = Tru64 UNIX (some versions of Tru64 UNIX may have the DU label)
V50
V40F
V40E
V40D
AS = Aggregate Selective (a kit that contains multiple patches)
SS = A patch kit containing a single patch (rarely used)
The numeric identifier that Compaq uses to track the kit contents
This is the year, month, and day the kit was built and is in the form of YYYYMMDD
.tar
For example, a file named
DUV4-FAS0001-19990609.tar
contains Patch Kit 1 for Tru64 UNIX Version 4.0F and TruCluster Server
Version 1.6, manufactured on June 9, 1999.
1.3.2 CSP Kit Naming
Customer-specific patch kits are provided by your server provider in response to any of your reported Tru64 UNIX or TCR that require a software correction. CSP kits provide interim patches for a specific customer's problem and computing environment.
customer-specific patch kit names have the following syntax:
Product
|
Version
|
BL
|
C
PatchType
|
UniqueID
|
-MfgDate
|
.FileType
The following list describes the attributes currently used in patch kit names:
DU = DIGITAL UNIX
T64 = Tru64 UNIX
TCR = TruCluster
V50
V40F
V40E
V40D
The release patch base level the customer-specific patch is built against. This is used by the service provider. For example: BL12
customer-specific patch
The numeric identifier used to track patches which are relative to the product version patch kit
Patch identifiers have the following format:
MajorID
Five numeric digits, starting at 1
MinorID
Two numeric digits, starting at 0
The 4-8 place unique kitting ID for that patch
The year, month, and day the kit was built and is in the form of YYYYMMDD
.tar
For example, a file named
DUV40D11-C0039200-1007-19990822.tar
contains a customer-specific patch distribution for DIGITAL UNIX
4.0D patch C392.00 manufactured on August 8, 1999 against base level 11.
1.4 Patch Kit Installation Requirements
To successfully install Tru64 UNIX or TCR patch kits, your system must meet the following requirements:
Be running the appropriate version of Tru64 UNIX or TCR.
Contain the necessary temporary and permanent storage space described in the Patch Summary and Release Notes document for the kit you are installing.