HP-UX 11.0 Patching dependencies question

[Mark Mitchell]

As for patch management, I will have to offer this opinion. I don't believe in blasting a functional system with patch bundles. If you look at this page you see people who ended up restoring their server because of boot problems after the install. I would recommend using a patch when you have a problem and you can see that it resolves it. Like above, I don't have VXFS fs on the system so I am not going to load 20 megs of patches that can create more problems. If I have a parse problem then I will load the one, you have to think about it like surgery with a scalpel or a shotgun.
Take the time to create a tree diagram of the patch and dependancies after you know that you really need them.

[Lane Frazier]

This has gotten way more complex than it needs to be. I tend to subscribe to the school that if it aint broke don't fix it....( I usually don't have to look too far for broken stuff). That said I hate to get hung out to dry putting on individual patches...

I called HP again (not that I don't trust you folk) and pressed them on the dependency issue. Here's what I found.

the pax patch PHCO_20416 needs PHKL_19991 now superceeded by PHKL_22022....I have neither of these on....

BUT....Because I had PHKL_16983 on my system swinstall put PHCO_20416 on.

Autoselect depedencies is on in my swinstall options which is what enforces this I guess....I don't think I'll ever "understand" this....

Think I'll wait till December and put the June 2000 patches on......way too much sugar for a dime!

[marc seguin]

Be careful !
Patches which are necessary for other ones are not automatically selected, even with the "autoselect_dependencies=true" option. And the installation will go on without the dependencies, even if you use "enforce_dependencies=true" option (the default one).
The only exception I saw was with dependent patches of PHKL_18543, which can't be installed if you don't have PHKL_18543.
So don't expect swinstall to warn you about dependencies not installed. You have to read the text file and to look for dependencies by yourself.
And don't trust the guy who says (above) that an older version of a dependency should be enough. You can't know if the older version meets the requirements or if you really need the new version HP ask for.