Patching Solaris 9 systems to "current"

Hi,

We have a number of Solaris 9 (SPARC) systems that were originally deployed awhile ago, and I've been asked to bring the systems "up-to-date" patch-wise. The person who originally deployed/built these systems is unavailable, so I got "stuck" with this task :(.

It's going to be a couple of weeks before I can get in to "see" the systems, but I'm trying to prepare and gather information on this...

From what I've been told, Solaris on all these systems was installed from a base image (FLAR), and then I think (again, I haven't actually had any "hands-on" time with these systems yet) the disk allocations were adjusted on some of the systems depending on what was going to be running on them.

Also, according to what I've been able to find out, that base image had "the latest patch cluster at the time" applied.

From what I can gather, the original deployment took place about 2 years ago :(.

And, finally, these systems don't have any internet access, so I'll have to burn whatever is needed to some CDs beforehand.

So, I'm looking for some advice as to what the best/safest approach to doing this might be.

I'm thinking that one of the first things that I want to do is to get onto each system and run "showprev -p", to verify that all the systems really are patched the same, and also to try to understand (and document) what has been applied.

Assuming that they all are patched identically, I'm wondering: What then?

Would it be best/safest to get a support case with Sun and ask for the last recommended patch cluster, and just install that?

Or, is there a "better way"?

The main thing I'm looking for is "safety", by which I mean minimizing the possibility of trashing any of these systems, since all of the people who were involved with the original deployment are apparently long gone :(.

Also, any other hints/suggestions on this matter?

Sorry if the questions in this post are a bit vague, but any suggestions/recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Patching Solaris 9 systems to "current"
    ... We have a number of Solaris 9 systems that were originally ... I'm looking for some advice as to what the best/safest approach to ... people who were involved with the original deployment are apparently ... by the patches, then I don't really see any point to this. ...
    (comp.unix.solaris)
  • Re: How to write a backup script?
    ... >> on Solaris x86? ... access to a Solaris 64-bit SPARC. ... that's what I'll be using to test the script before deployment. ...
    (comp.sys.sun.admin)