Re: [pca] Can not exclude 144500-19!?

2011-09-22 Thread Martin Paul 

Tate, Robert B wrote:

Thank you! I missed that. I would argue that is should ignore it as requested
and then show that the others were ignored also when they were done. Or a
separate option to Force the ignore anyway. I see the reason for not doing it
that way also, but the only problem with that is that (in this case) we end
up with an unbootable system.


I agree that the current behaviour is unexpected; to be honet, I had to take a 
close look myself to realise it. After looking at the code and thinking about 
alternatives, I'm still unsure about a "better" behaviour. A "--strict" option 
could be added, which would enforce strict ignoring, even if a patch is required 
by another one. Due to the recursive dependency checking, it would be hard to 
ignore the requiring patch, too, though. So it'll end up with patches in the 
list which will fail to install because of missing dependencies.


Anyway - the good thing is that such situations usually don't happen - the issue 
hasn't come up in the last years. This one is kind of special - normally a patch 
with ill effects is marked as "BAD" and an older revision is reinstated. Then 
PCA will show the last good revision, and everything is fine. This kernel patch 
doesn't have a previous revision, and it obsoleted a lot of other patches, which 
would have to be reinstated as well. Maybe the problem was deemed not to be 
serious enough, to rectify that amount of work.



I did see a 'whitelist' referred to in the update logs. What is that used
for?


It's used with PCA's "--safe" option. Before installing a patch, it uses pkgchk 
to see whether any of the files which come with the patch have local 
modifications. This is to warn you from e.g. /var/yp/Makefile or sendmail.cf 
being overwritten without notice. There isn't a 100% consistency in the pkgchk 
database, and the whitelist is used to ignore certain files in the check.



This is a awesome program and has saved my tail on a bunch of systems when
Oracle stopped supporting smpatch on Sol 8 and 9 systems (I still have a few
left).


Thanks!

Martin.

Re: [pca] Can not exclude 144500-19!?

2011-09-22 Thread Don O'Malley 




Hi Robert,

I'll leave the whitelist/blacklist stuff to Martin.

I'm more interested in why you're ending up in the panic loop!

Are you running EMC PowerPath?
If so - check out
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1358671.1
We have also seen similar nasty reactions to 144500-19 with the
following multipathing products:

  Hitachi HDS
  Falconstor
  Dynapath
  CA Access Control SeOS

It seems like in all cases the problem occurs when the multipathing
product uses a private Solaris interface, which patch 144500-19 changes.

Bottom line is that patch 144500-19 is not compatible with the effected
products.
To try prevent customers hitting the most prevalent of these issues,
which is EMC PowerPath, we have worked with EMC to construct logic
which will prevent patch 144500-19 from applying to susceptible systems.

This logic is delivered in patch 12-11 (released Monday 19th
September). This patch is now in the Recommended Patchset.

HTH,
-Don



Tate, Robert B wrote:

  
  
  
  
  Installing this patch puts many of our systems
into endless reboots. I have used the following command line to try and
exclude this patch (and some others), but it still shows up in the
lists. I found a white list in the program which seems to override my
commands. Is this correct? How can I get around this? I cannot allow
this to be installed until this is fixed and can’t get pca to not
install it. 
   
  To get a listing, this is what I use:
  /usr/tools/adm/SunOS/bin/pca -y
-X/usr/tools/adm/SunOS/pca \
   --pattern="!VRTS|VERITAS|NetBackup|VxVM|SYMC" \
   --ignore=144500-19 --ignore=121430-66
--ignore=127655-07 -l
   
  (/usr/tools is a commen NFS mounted tools area
we use).
   
   
   
  -
  
  L 
  Robert B. Tate     UNIX
Systems Administrator, Stf
  Lockheed
Martin - EBS Enterprise
Business Services
  
  Engineering
and Computing
  UNIX
  Systems
  Support
(ECUSS) 
  Email:
< mailto:robert.b.t...@lmco.com> 
   Office
Phone: (407) 306-2720 (M-Thu)
  
   Home
Phone: (407)
830-7319 (Fri) 
   
  Faster,
Cheaper, Reliable:  Pick any two.
   
  


-- 
  
Don O'Malley

Manager,Patch System Test
Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware 
East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 8199764 
Team Alias: rpe_patch_system_test...@oracle.com

Re: [pca] EXTERNAL: Re: Can not exclude 144500-19!?

2011-09-22 Thread Tate, Robert B 
We are running EMC PowerPath and also have Hitachi HDS on some of the servers 
here. The Panic loop happened last week on the 17th so the new patch wasn't out 
yet. I will look at 12-11 and make sure it is applied before 144500-19 is 
attempted.

Thank you Don

Bob Tate

From: pca-boun...@lists.univie.ac.at [mailto:pca-boun...@lists.univie.ac.at] On 
Behalf Of Don O'Malley
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 6:50 AM
To: PCA (Patch Check Advanced) Discussion
Subject: EXTERNAL: Re: [pca] Can not exclude 144500-19!?

Hi Robert,

I'll leave the whitelist/blacklist stuff to Martin.

I'm more interested in why you're ending up in the panic loop!

Are you running EMC PowerPath?
If so - check out 
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1358671.1
We have also seen similar nasty reactions to 144500-19 with the following 
multipathing products:

  *   Hitachi HDS
  *   Falconstor
  *   Dynapath
  *   CA Access Control SeOS
It seems like in all cases the problem occurs when the multipathing product 
uses a private Solaris interface, which patch 144500-19 changes.

Bottom line is that patch 144500-19 is not compatible with the effected 
products.
To try prevent customers hitting the most prevalent of these issues, which is 
EMC PowerPath, we have worked with EMC to construct logic which will prevent 
patch 144500-19 from applying to susceptible systems.

This logic is delivered in patch 12-11 (released Monday 19th September). 
This patch is now in the Recommended Patchset.

HTH,
-Don



Tate, Robert B wrote:
Installing this patch puts many of our systems into endless reboots. I have 
used the following command line to try and exclude this patch (and some 
others), but it still shows up in the lists. I found a white list in the 
program which seems to override my commands. Is this correct? How can I get 
around this? I cannot allow this to be installed until this is fixed and can't 
get pca to not install it.

To get a listing, this is what I use:
/usr/tools/adm/SunOS/bin/pca -y -X/usr/tools/adm/SunOS/pca \
--pattern="!VRTS|VERITAS|NetBackup|VxVM|SYMC" \
--ignore=144500-19 --ignore=121430-66 --ignore=127655-07 -l

(/usr/tools is a commen NFS mounted tools area we use).



-
L
Robert B. Tate UNIX Systems Administrator, Stf
Lockheed Martin - EBS Enterprise Business Services
Engineering and Computing UNIX Systems Support (ECUSS)
Email: < mailto:robert.b.t...@lmco.com>
 Office Phone: (407) 306-2720 (M-Thu)
 Home Phone: (407) 830-7319 (Fri)

Faster, Cheaper, Reliable:  Pick any two.


--
[cid:image001.gif@01CC7917.BF6A5F90]
Don O'Malley
Manager,Patch System Test
Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware
East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 8199764
Team Alias: 
rpe_patch_system_test...@oracle.com
<>

Re: [pca] EXTERNAL: Re: Can not exclude 144500-19!?

2011-09-22 Thread Don O'Malley 




Hi Bob,

All patch 12-11 will do is prevent customers with EMC PowerPath
installed from shooting themselves in the foot by installing patch
144500-19 (it will actually prevent installation of 144500-19 on
systems that have affected versions of EMC PowerPath installed).

In addition, 12-01 does not have similar logic for the Hitachi,
Falcon, Dynapath or CA products.

Patch 12-11 does not fix the issue.

This is not something which can be fixed by Oracle. Instead it is up to
each ISV that has coded against private interfaces in Solaris to
produce a hotfix for the issue.
In the case of EMC, the date I heard for a hotfix for EMC PowerPath was
the 7th October. To get further information you need to follow up with
the ISV in question.

NOTE 9 of "Special Install Instructions" section of the README for
144500-19 is specifically related to this issue:
NOTE 9:  Currently released EMC PowerPath versions (as of August 18th 2011) are
 incompatible with this patch.  Do not install this patch on systems
 running EMC PowerPath, until EMC provides a fix for this issue.

 EMC is working on a fix to resolve this issue and have published
 ETA emc275344 on https://powerlink.emc.com which contains further
 information.

 To prevent this kernel patch from being installed on systems with
 incompatible PowerPath versions, please first install the following
 patch:

 12-11 (or greater)  patch behavior patch


HTH,
-Don


Tate, Robert B wrote:

  
  

  
  
  We are
running EMC PowerPath and also have Hitachi HDS on some of the servers
here. The Panic loop happened last week on the 17th so the
new patch wasn’t out yet. I will look at 12-11 and make sure it is
applied before 144500-19 is attempted.
   
  Thank you
Don
   
  Bob Tate
   
  
  
  From:
pca-boun...@lists.univie.ac.at [mailto:pca-boun...@lists.univie.ac.at]
  On Behalf Of Don O'Malley
  Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 6:50 AM
  To: PCA (Patch Check Advanced) Discussion
  Subject: EXTERNAL: Re: [pca] Can not exclude 144500-19!?
  
  
   
  Hi Robert,
  
I'll leave the whitelist/blacklist stuff to Martin.
  
I'm more interested in why you're ending up in the panic loop!
  
Are you running EMC PowerPath?
If so - check out 
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=1358671.1
We have also seen similar nasty reactions to 144500-19 with the
following multipathing products:
  

Hitachi HDS
Falconstor
Dynapath
CA Access Control SeOS
  
  It seems like in all cases the problem occurs
when the multipathing product uses a private Solaris interface, which
patch 144500-19 changes.
  
Bottom line is that patch 144500-19 is not compatible with the effected
products.
To try prevent customers hitting the most prevalent of these issues,
which is EMC PowerPath, we have worked with EMC to construct logic
which will prevent patch 144500-19 from applying to susceptible systems.
  
This logic is delivered in patch 12-11 (released Monday 19th
September). This patch is now in the Recommended Patchset.
  
HTH,
-Don
  
  
  
Tate, Robert B wrote: 
  Installing this patch puts many of our systems
into endless reboots. I have used the following command line to try and
exclude this patch (and some others), but it still shows up in the
lists. I found a white list in the program which seems to override my
commands. Is this correct? How can I get around this? I cannot allow
this to be installed until this is fixed and can’t get pca to not
install it.
  
   
  To get a listing, this is what I use:
  /usr/tools/adm/SunOS/bin/pca -y
-X/usr/tools/adm/SunOS/pca \
  --pattern="!VRTS|VERITAS|NetBackup|VxVM|SYMC" \
  --ignore=144500-19 --ignore=121430-66
--ignore=127655-07 -l
   
  (/usr/tools is a commen NFS mounted tools area
we use).
   
   
   
  -
  
  L
  
  Robert B. Tate     UNIX
Systems Administrator, Stf
  Lockheed
Martin - EBS
  Enterprise
Business Services
  
  Engineering
and
  Computing
  UNIX
  Systems
  Support
(ECUSS)
  
  Email:
< 
  mailto:robert.b.t...@lmco.com>
  
   Office
Phone:
  (407)
306-2720 (M-Thu)
  
   Home
Phone:
  (407)
830-7319 (Fri)
  
   
  Faster,
Cheaper, Reliable: 
  Pick
any two.
   
   
  
  --
  
  
  Don
O'Malley
  Manager,Patch
System Test
Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware 
East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 8199764 
Team Alias: rpe_patch_system_test...@oracle.com
  
  


-- 
  
Don O'Malley

Manager,Patch System Test
Revenue Product Engineering | Solaris | Hardware 
East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, Ireland
Phone: +353 1 8199764 
Team Alias: rpe_patch_system_test...@oracle.com