It eliminates risks and reduces downtime inherent to the patching activity.
Together with ZFS, smpatch and liveupgrade turn it all peace-of-cake.
Going straight, while the system is fully operational:
- Make sure you have the latest LU patch (121430 for SPARC, 121431 for x86);
# smpatch download -t -f -i 121430 | head
Note the latest level (81 in this example) printed on the first line and use it next:
# smpatch download -i 121430-81
# smpatch add -i 121430-81
- Prepare /etc/lu/synclist accordingly; see synclist(4).
- Create a new alternate boot environment (ABE);
(if only the initial unamed BE exists, add the -c option to give it a name)
# lucreate -n be-2012-may-u1
# lustatus
- Perform off-line patching operations to this new ABE;
(the undocumented -C option works around a bug: operation not fully off-line)
# smpatch analyze > /tmp/be-2012-may-u1.analyze
# smpatch update -b be-2012-may-u1
-C patchpro.install.types=
rebootimmediate:rebootafter:
reconfigimmediate:reconfigafter:
standard:interactive:singleuser
- Wait until the next reboot window to the activated and updated ABE.
# init 6
- In case of any problems with the new BE, go back to the previous one:
# luactivate -n be-2012-april-u1
Don't create sub-datasets of zones' datasets or liveupgrade will fail.
