Hi,
We have been working over the past number of months to introduce a
product based search in to PatchFinder -
http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchfinder/.
pca is really designed to download and install Sun standard svr4 format
patches. It does not and should not have the capability to handle
firmware patches.
As Martin has pointed out, these patches do not use Sun's standard
patchadd tool to apply, but instead typically require the user to place
a file in a particular location and then reboot the machine with
specific options to pick up the firmware update.
For these reasons information regarding firmware patches which firmware
patches to apply to your system should not be derived from information
in the patchdiag.xref file.
If you want a tool capable of performing bare metal provisioning, then
perhaps you want a heavyweight patching tool like Oracle Enterprise
Manager Ops Center -
http://www.oracle.com/us/products/enterprise-manager/opscenter/index.html
- but this is not a free tool!
So, where can you find firmware information?
Like I said initially, we are in the process of introducing a product
based search into PatchFinder. This will enable you to navigate to
products, such as the SunFire V890 and see all firmware patches specific
to it.
In the meantime you do have few other options:
1) Use the Big Admin Patching Center Firmware section
(http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/firmware/) - For example, info for
the v880/890 is at
http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/firmware/release_history.jsp#V880
2) For older systems you may find what you need in
http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-61-204156-1
3) Use the existing PatchFinder tool to do a Synopsis line search for
890 (be sure to check the Show Obsolete checkbox to see all patches
and not just the latest):
http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchfinder/?max%3D20%26entitlementFilter%3D%26keyword%3D%26state%3DAVAILABLE%26uiForm%3DY%26securityFilter%3D%26uiAdvForm%3DN%26isObsolete%3DTRUE%26modifiedFrom%3D%26patchId%3D%26architecture%3DAll%26sortDir%3D%26patchProperty%3D%26releasedFrom%3D%26sunsolve%3D%26sortBy%3D%26file%3D%26releasedBefore%3D%26synopsis%3Dv890%26osRelease%3DAll%26bugId%3D
HTH,
-Don
Martin Paul wrote:
John Lyman wrote:
Is there a way to view required PROM updates along with missing patches?
Eric and Glenn are correct - the only bit of information that pca
could use to correlate firmware patches with a certain machine is the
textual description of the patch. This might look simple at first, but
often there are multiple firmware patches for e.g. V880. Or just
look at these:
119232 -- 02 --- 999 Hardware/PROM: Sun Blade 2500 (non Silver) Sun
Fire
V250 Flash PRO
119233 -- 02 --- 999 Hardware/PROM: Sun Blade 2500 (Silver) Flash PROM
Update
The uname command doesn't have information about the color of the
machine. Then there's much more firmware in a system than you might
imagine (disks, dvd drive, back plane, service processor, etc.), all
of which require different patches.
It's not that it's technically impossible to find a solution for this
problem. Sun could have given a unique ID to any device with patchable
firmware, provide a command which lists all the IDs and firmware
versions in a system, and list the IDs/versions in patchdiag.xref with
each patch. Now you have all ingredients to make a tool like pca work
for firmware patches as well.
In a closed environment of Sun hard- and software that would have been
doable, but as soon as you add third-party hardware, everything gets
very complicated ..
Martin.
