HP-UX 8.0 -- Patches

[Shane Travis]

Yes, HP-UX 8.0 ... you can all stop laughing now.

Here's my situation: I'm in charge of supporting some old systems in Australia. (I'm in Canada.) One of the boot-disks recently crashed, necessitating a full re-install of the OS. (Yes, they had recovery disks and root filesystem dumps; No, they couldn't seem to put their hands on them when push came to shove. Sigh.) Fortunately, I've got a redundant system that gave me enough clues that I was able to mostly rebuild it to be as it was. I'm still glitching in a couple of areas, though, and I think that it's because the 2nd system has some patches that the newly-installed first system does not.

The patches in question are:
PHNE_1090
PHNE_1905

On the redundant system, there are directories in /system with these names. They contain the following files:

======================================
juliet 28 /system/PHNE_1090 > ls -1R
CDFinfo
customize*
index
new/
orig/

./new:
in_pcb.o
tcp_usrreq.o

./orig:
in_pcb.o
tcp_usrreq.o

====================================

Nowhere on any system or tape, locally or at site (or so they tell me) are copies of the original distributions of these patches, although these directories look a lot like the unpacked shell archives.

What I'm hoping you fine people can help me with is either:

a) Copies of the original patches, (Yeah, I know it's a long shot, but maybe someone out there has a patch archive and they'd be willing to mail me a copy of these; Usurprisingly, they aren't available from the HP-UX Patch Download Center...)

or

b) Some information about what exactly I've got in the /system directory (as shown above) and whether or not it can be used somehow in conjunction with update.

I know that this stuff is about eight years old, but maybe someone out there is, like me, in the unenviable position of having to maintain boxes like these and can give me a hand. Much appreciated.

[Patrick Wallek · Accepted solution]

I was able to get to PHNE_1905 from the ITRC Patch Database Main page, where I just put in PHNE_1905 in the Retrieve Specific Patches field and lo-and-behold it came up.

I was also able to find PHNE_1905 at the ftp site for patches. ftp://ftp.itrc.hp.com/hp-ux_patches/s300_400/8.X/

I also just found PHNE_5570 which is a patch that supersedes PHNE_1090.

Check out the two links above and you should be able to find them both and download them again.

Good luck with this system. I don't think I envy you in this task. ;)

[Steffi Jones_1]

Hi Tim,

yes, I'm at least smiling, but more when I think back at all the wind about y2k. Obviously your system is alive and kicking ...

I ftp'd the patches for you and they are located on the following server:

server: 192.170.19.51
user: timkor
passwd: tieck3

This account stays open for 5 days.

Please let me know if that worked for you,

Steffi Jones

[Shane Travis]

Wow. When I posted my cry for help here and on comp.sys.hp-hpux, I wasn't holding out much hope. I figured it oculdn't hurt, though, and at worst I'd only be wasting the time it took to write it.

Not so! Besides the two great responses here, I got two e-mails in response to the USENET article, and every one of the answers was helpful in one way or another.

A couple of responses:
> I was able to get to PHNE_1905 from the ITRC
> Patch Database Main page...

D'oh! I tried 1090 first, and it failed. IE tells me that I mis-keyed 1905 when I tried it, and never noticed. Grrrr.

> I was also able to find PHNE_1905 at the ftp
> site for patches...

Okay, next question, then. I went and looked there, and it seems that there are a lot of patches that never got installed on the 8.0 box by previous maintainers or coders. Requesting advice: Should I download and install these, or count my blessings and just be happy with getting the system back to how it was before the boot-disk crashed?

(Pros: may fix problems with the system. Cons: may interact with the existing code in unforseeable ways, may add instability to the system if the patch isn't perfect or the system is not configured as the patch expects.)

> I also just found PHNE_5570 which is a patch
> that supersedes PHNE_1090.

That brings up another question. Two people (Thanks, Steffi!) made these patches available to me; in both cases, 1090 had no code portion, just the .text section and a huge banner saying, "REPLACED BY PHNE_3734". Thing is, I couldn't find 3734 on the Patch Database Main Page either; apparently 5570 supersedes that one too. Is there any way to know what patch you WANT when the patch you're LOOKING FOR has been rolled up into a later version?


Anyway, the good news is that I've installed the patches at site (1090 and 1095, not 5570) by doing an rcp of these directories from the redundant machine and running the 'customize' script that's shown there. (That was one of the e-mail responses.) Doing so has made the kernels on both machines identical, and there have been no Sybase problems after about 6 hours of use... cross your fingers for me, folks! And thanks again to everyone!

[Patrick Wallek]

Tim,

To answer your questions:

>>Should I download and install these, or count my blessings and just >>be happy with getting the system back to how it was before the >>boot-disk crashed?

On a box of this age, I think I would leave it in the state you have it in now. As you point out, some of the other patches my interact with the system in unforseen ways. And since 8.X hasn't been officially supported for a number of years, you would be risking blowing the system up with no possibility of help from HP.

>>I couldn't find 3734 on the Patch Database Main Page either; >>apparently 5570 supersedes that one too. Is there any way to know >>what patch you WANT when the patch you're LOOKING FOR has >>been rolled up into a later version?

The way I found that PHNE_1090 had been superseded by PHNE_5570 was by going to the ITRC main page, and under the 'maintenance/support' block, selected 'search technical knowledge base' and put in PHNE_1090 as the search criteria. That returned one documet, the patch text for PHNE_5570, which has the supersedes section that lists PHNE_1090 and also PHNE_3734.

For these older boxes, if you have a patch number I would just search the technical knowledge base and see what comes up. If we were talking about a 10.20 or 11 box, then when you search for a specific patch by name, it should come up and tell you that the patch has been superseded and give you the new patch name.

Hope this helps.