Install of HP-UX 11.00 from latest install CD's

[John Waller]

This is not really a problem which needs answering but more of an observation requireing views.

I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but following an install of 11.00 from either Sept 2001 or Dec 2001 install CD's if you do a "swlist -l fileset -a state" you see a number of patches with a state of installed and not configured.

I have already raised this issue with HP support desk as a swconfig \* doesn't configure them.
Apparantly it is due to the new instalation procedure requesting for the support CD to be inserted and automatically installing patches from the CD before it has configured the patches which come as part of the Core OS Install CD. It now means in a normal working state you will always have a number of patches with a state of installed.

I don't know about anybody else but I was lead to believe that this was not a good state to be in. Also what is the first thing the HP responce centre tell you to do when they are checking a problem, perform a swlist -a state -l fileset and check that all the patches have a state of configured.

How about getting a pertition to get the labs to change things back to the original way of working ??

[Bill Hassell · Accepted solution]

From our patch guru:

The issue is that during an install or update session in which multiple depots are used (i.e. multiple pieces of media) swconfig
is only executed once at the end of the entire session. If during the install/update session patches were installed from a second depot that
supersede patches in the first depot, the superseded patches won't be configured. This is because at the time swconfig is run, the older patches have been overwritten by the newer patches so swconfig does not configure them. Doing so could cause harm to the newer patches.

The best recommendation is to configure SD
on the system such that superseded patches are not displayed by default with swlist. This would essentially hide the superseded patches that were never configured.

To verify this is the situation, you can execute the command:

swlist -l fileset -a state -a patch_state

If the only patch filesets that have a state of installed also have a patch_state of superseded, then this is the situation. If you have the version of SD provided in PHCO_20078 or later, you can configure
swlist so that superseded patches are not displayed. If the following command does not complain about an unrecognized option:

swlist -l fileset -a state -a patch_state -x show_superseded_patches=false

then you have the requisite version of swlist and you can set this option by default in the /var/adm/sw/defaults file:

swlist.show_superseded_patches = false

which permanently hides the superseded patch information.

[John Waller]

Bill,

Many thanks for the information.
I had already come up the reason why this had happened myself, but the extra information about the -a patch_state -x show_superseded_patches=false is extreamly helpful.
You have to wonder why HP labs have decided to change things in this way. I agree with progression, but only for the better, in my opinion, this is definiatly NOT for the better. I also have to wonder if it works correctly, I now have discovered I am missing the -D option on the lvcreate command which was fixed by a patch included on the Dec 2001 patch CD, but will not configure as it has been superseded