Known Issues and Workarounds in Update Manager 1.0.10

These are the known issues in Update Manager and the web-hosted architecture.

Solaris OS Support

Sun Connection Update Manager is now designed for systems that are using the Solaris 9 and 10 SPARC and x86 OS as well as Solaris 8 SPARC OS. Patch Manager 2 will no longer be supported on Solaris 8 and 9 and shortly after Update Manager for Solaris 8 and 9 is released, Patch Manager 2 will no longer have access to patches.

• Update Manager on Solaris 8 does not support the Live Upgrade features of smpatch added in 1.0.9

• Sun Connection Hosted is not supported for Solaris 8 or Solaris 9 clients

• The Update Manager notification icon that resides in the Gnome panel is not supported on Solaris 8 and Solaris 9

Solaris Zones Software Support (Solaris 10 only)

Starting with Sun Connection Update Manager 1.0.4, the Update Manager application and the smpatch command support the following behavior from a global zone on a system where one or more non-global zones are installed:

You can only run the Sun Connection Update Manager application and the smpatch command from within the global zone.
Update Manager and smpatch can only perform a patch analysis on the global zone of a system.
When adding patches to the global zone, Update Manager and smpatch perform using the default patchadd behavior. When installing in the global zone, the effect on non-global zones also follows the default zones behavior.
You cannot use the Update Manager application or the smpatch command to select updates to download and install into any specific non-global zone.

Sun Online Account Issues

Before you register your systems with Sun Connection, verify that the email address associated with your Sun Online Account is valid. The administrator sends email to the address that you provided when you registered for your Sun Online Account.

For example, if you forget your password and request that Sun send you a new one, the password is reset and it is sent to the email address that is associated with your Sun Online Account.

You must have a Sun Online Account to access the Sun Connection hosted application.

CLI System Registration

With patch 121563-02 (SPARC) or 121564-02 (x86), you can use the command-line interface (CLI) tool to register your clients with Sun Connection Update Manager for S10 GA and S10 1/06 (update 1).

Note: Later releases of the Solaris 10 OS already have this capability as well as this new release for Solaris 8 and 9.

For more information about using the registration CLI, go here: http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-82688-1

Registration Issues

If you are having trouble registering your system with Sun Connection, verify that you have applied the latest Sun Connection Basic Registration patches. As of this date, the following are the latest registration patches:

Solaris 10 OS for x86 Platforms patches
123631-01 SunOS 5.10_x86: HTTP proxy settings patch
123012-01 SunOS 5.10_x86: BR desktop icon patch
123006-05 SunOS 5.10_x86: Basic Registration Update
123004-03 SunOS 5.10_x86: SunOS 5.10_x86: SAM module patch
121564-02 SunOS 5.10_x86: Sun Update Connection Registration, version 1.0.3

Solaris 10 SPARC patches
123630-01 SunOS 5.10: HTTP proxy settings patch
123011-01 SunOS 5.10: BR desktop icon patch
123005-05 SunOS 5.10: Basic Registration Update
123003-02 SunOS 5.10: SunOS 5.10_x86: SAM module patch
121563-02 SunOS 5.10: Sun Update Connection Registration, version 1.0.3
Note: Not all of these patches are applicable to every Solaris 10 release. See the patch README for specifics.

Sun Subscription Key

Sun Update Connection uses subscription key to mean the alphanumeric identification (ID) string of your Sun service contract that includes software support. Other terms that refer to this same ID include Sun Service Plan ID, license token, and service contract number.

Your Sun Services representative can help you purchase a support contract that includes software support and can provide you with your current contract ID.

Other Outstanding Issues and Workarounds

This section describes the outstanding issues in this release.

jdk1.5.0_12 : 'java -version:1.5+' failure dependent of length of HOME env var (6598663)

Description
This is a bug in Java 5 that can cause the Update Manager launcher scripts to not be able to find java and therefore fail to launch. This can impact
Update Manager, smpatch and sconadm. It is caused by a buffer overrun in java that is related to the length of the path of the user's home directory.

Workaround
Until Java produces a patch the workaround is to set env var JAVA_VERSION_PATH directly, as follows:
export JAVA_VERSION_PATH=$HOME/jdk:/usr/jdk

swupAuto Is Removed After Live Upgrade (6521635)

Description
After a live upgrade, the daily auto analysis done by Update Manager will sometimes stop. This is because the live upgrade causes the auto analysis job to be removed from cron.

Workaround
Relaunch Update Manager, which will cause the job to be reinstalled into cron.

Notification Icon Should Not Be Removed on Local Display When Update Manager Is Run From Remote Display (6508324)

Description
The notification icon only runs when Update Manager is operating in the local display. When Update Manager is launched remotely, the application incorrectly assumes that the notification icon has also be launched remotely and the icon closes.

Workaround
Launch Update Manager in the local display and reactivate the notification icon from the Update Manager Notification preferences.

The smpatch Process Hangs (6468844)

Description
CRs 6468844, 6507378, and 6502170 occur intermittently and appear to be related, or are possibly duplicates. See 6502170 for the workaround.

Java Threads Are Causing High Load in the Cluster (6507378)

Description
CRs 6468844, 6507378, and 6502170 occur intermittently and appear to be related, or are possibly duplicates. See 6502170 for the workaround.

smpatch Analyze Runs Forever (6502170)

Description
CRs 6468844, 6507378, and 6502170 occur intermittently and appear to be related, or are possibly duplicates. They appear as a hanging patch analyze process.

Workaround
Kill the hung processes and retry.

smpatch Attempting to Install Non-standard Patches (6483638)

Description
When smpatch is told to apply a non-standard patch, it appears to fail with the message, "CRITICAL: The patch 119280-08 makes the kernel unstable, is obsolete or is forbidden by policy." Update Manager also flags the install as failed with the same message.

Workaround
In this case, smpatch doesn't actually try to install the patch. This is the correct behavior for a nonstandard patch; however, the message is very confusing and it needs to be corrected. Also, smpatch is incorrectly telling Update Manager that the command failed when it really didn't. The workaround is to ignore the error message and manually download the patch to the download location. The default location is the /var/sadm/spool directory.

KU 118855-36 Breaks the showrev Command, Which Then Breaks Update Manager (6519422)

Description
After applying 118855-36 (x86) or 118833-36 (SPARC) the showrev command dumps core. This causes the Update Manager to fail with an error dialog.

Workaround
124630-03 (SPARC) and 124631-03 (x86) fixes the problem in showrev. Use smpatch at the command line to apply this patch before running Update Manager.

History

For a history of all changes for this and previous releases of Update Manager, please see the 121118-13 or 121119-13 patch README.