Patching Solaris 10 with PCA "Patch Check Advanced"

PCA  is a free tool that can be used to patch solaris systems. One of the really cool thing about this tool is that it resolves the dependencies between patches.

You can grab PCA from here.It is fast and I find it very simple to use. The only requirement is that you have a Sun Online Account and you get it for free here. With the your free account you will have access to security and driver patches. If you want access to all patches you need to purchase a service plan.

After you do the install you need to edit /etc/pca.conf

Here is an example of mine:
#####PCA.CONF
patchdir=/sunpatches
backdir=/sunpatches/backdir
xrefdir=/var/sadm/pca
xrefown
syslog=user
x#safe=1
###Sun Account
user=XXXXXX
passwd=XXXXX
###


If you haven’t patched your system in a while the list may be quite long. When we only want to see the missing security patches we run pca like this

502 $ sudo pca -l missings
Downloading xref file to /var/sadm/pca/patchdiag.xref
Trying http://sunsolve.sun.com/patchdiag.xref (1/1)
Using /var/sadm/pca/patchdiag.xref from Sep/17/09
Host: stewie-griffin (SunOS 5.10/Generic_141414-07/sparc/sun4u)
List: missings

Patch  IR   CR RSB Age Synopsis
------ -- - -- --- --- -------------------------------------------------------
119254 66 < 70 RS-  15 SunOS 5.10: Install and Patch Utilities Patch

Now to install the patches all you have to do is:

502 $ sudo pca -i missings

Hope this helps. -Brent