cleanup - the age old question with a difference

[Tony Walker_2]

Hi Guys,

Right, the /var cleanup time has come round again and now having done 2 and 3 I'm considering running cleanup -c1. My question is, if in the worst case someone should suddenly want a patch rolled that far back - can I restore the contents of /var/adm/sw/save? I'm doubting its that easy but thought I'd ask the question..

Thanks,

Tony

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Tony:

'cleanup -c1' leaves one level for "recovery" so should you need to rollback a patch you should be able to do so.

BTW, patch rollback is not to be taken lightly. The Patch Management guide discusses this as I recall, in more detail:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1163/index.html

Regards!

...JRF...

[Pete Randall]

Tony,

I think I would take an Ignite backup beforehand. That would cover your entire root VG and you should be safe in restoring it should the need arise.


Pete

[Tony Walker_2]

Thanks for the updates guys. We periodically take ignites so should be safe but can you confirm whether a simple restore of /var/adm/sw would acomplish the same?

Thanks,

Tony

[Pete Randall]

Tony,

I would fear that that would put the patch database out of sync with the binaries that are actually running.


Pete

[RAC_1]

How about moving /var/adm/sw to seperate file system??

[Tony Walker_2]

Pete,

I don't think it will be that easier either but just hoping to find a definitive answer. Since reading the link above I've been commiting a few really old patches individually using swmodify rather than cleanup which has resolved the issue for now. Ulimatley would love /var/adm/sw as a separate but these are legacy systems owned by people stuck in their ways with no budget....

Cheers,

Tony