SOLARIS KERNEL PATCHING PROCEDURE

SOLARIS KERNEL PATCHING PROCEDURE

1. We need to prepare patch document procedure with back-out plan, and needs to get the approval by change management. Once we get the approval, we can start our change in scheduled window
2. Download suitable our platform bundle patch(Recommended Solaris Cluster Patch) fromhttps://support.oracle.com

#isainfo -b  [ to check the bit version]

3. Take the necessary backups of the server.

#uname –a	# df –k	#metastat –p	#metadb –i	#netastat –nr
#ifconfig –a	#prtconf	#prtdiag –v	#metastat -ac	#metastat –t
#eeprom	#echo | format	/etc/system	/etc/vfstab

NOTE: Better to run SUN Explorer before preceding this activity

NOTE: Take the outputs before detaching the mirror else you would have to take the backups separately for your detached disk

NOTE: Zones must be halted, while doing patch on active boot enviromnet

            #zoneadm list –vc

NOTE: Before proceeding with patching, make sure our application & data base are down

4. Break the mirror, and it will isolate from root disk.

c1t0d0 —> Root disk

c1t1d0 —> Root-mirror disk

·         First delete state database replicas from root-mirror disk

#metadb –i

a    p  luo        16              8192            /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s7

#metadb –d –f  /dev/dsk/ c1t1d0s7

·         Proceed with the mirror detach for your root-mirror disk

# metastat –p

            d1 -m d20 d21 1

d20 1 1 c1t0d0s1

d21 1 1 c1t1d0s1

d0 -m d10 d11 1

d10 1 1 c1t0d0s0

d11 1 1 c1t1d0s0

#metadetach d1 d21

#metadetach d0 d11

#metaclear d21

#metaclear d11

#metastat –p

            d1 -m d20

d20 1 1 c1t0d0s1

                                    d0 -m d10

d10 1 1 c1t0d0s0

5. Mount detached root-mirror disk on mount point /mnt and edit /mnt/etc/vfstab & /mnt/etc/vfstab

#mount /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0 /mnt

#vi /mnt/etc/vfstab     [change md entries to native entries]

/dev/md/dsk/d1   à /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s1

/dev/md/dsk/d0   à /dev/dsk/c1t1d0s0

# grep -i md /mnt/etc/system

* Begin MDD root info (do not edit)

rootdev:/pseudo/md@0:0,0,blk    [comment with *]

* End MDD root info (do not edit)

6. Unmount root-mirror disk and fsck

#umount /mnt

#fsck /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s0

NOTE:

1.) Please keep in mind that all changes are applicable to root-mirror disk. Do not do any changes on other disk (i.e. root-disk).
2.) It is recommended to run fsck on root-mirror disk (slice 0, rootFS slice) so that it won’t give any errors while booting.
3.) Before proceeding with the patching make sure that /var FS have enough free space as all logs will be written there. else you will get errors while patching.

7. Now our root-disk is under SVM control and root-mirror disk is under native raw Solaris disk. By doing this step we are making sure that in case if anything goes against our action plan then we will be able to recover our server from other disk.  
8. We have to test the booting of our server from both the disks to make sure that the server will come up with both of the disks without any issues.

#init 0

Ok>devalias root-mirror

/pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@1,0:a

Ok>boot root-mirror 

Once system come-up with root-mirror, needs do the post check like df –h, ifconfig etc

Now boot the server from root-disk as well

#init 0

Ok>devalias rootdisk

/pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@0,0:a

            Ok>boot rootdisk

Once system come-up with rootdisk, needs do the post check like df –h, ifconfig etc

9. Now we can go ahead with patching, but server should be single user mode

#cd /var/tmp

# digest -a md5 -v /var/tmp/10_x86_Recommended.zip [will check md5 value]

#unzip -q 10_Recommended.zip

NOTE: for unzipping of recommended patch, we need 5 GB of disk space

#grep PASSCODE 10_Recommended.README

*************** PASSCODE **************

PASSCODE: s10patchset

#shutdown -g0 -y –is

#who –r

.       run-level S  Oct 25 12:39     S      0  3

NOTE: For installation recommended patch, we need 3 GB of disk space

#./installpatchset --s10patchset  

Setup ..........

Recommended OS Patchset Solaris 10 x86 (2011.09.14)

The patch set will complete installation in this session. No intermediate

reboots are required.

Application of patches started : 2011.09.16 20:24:45

Applying 120901-03 (  1 of 302) ... skipped

Applying 121334-04 (  2 of 302) ... skipped

Applying 119255-81 (  3 of 302) ... skipped

.

. <similar output omitted>

.

Applying 147379-01 (300 of 302) ... success

Applying 147435-01 (301 of 302) ... success

Applying 147441-01 (302 of 302) ... success

NOTE: A symlink to 'installpatchset' is provided in place of the legacy 'installcluster' script for now

10. Once patching has done, needs to run reconfiguration reboot on server and check the kernel version

#touch /reconfigure

#reboot -- -r

#uname -a

SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic_147441-01 32-bit

NOTE: Do not re-mirror the root-mirror disk immediately; wait for 5 to 7 days to notice any issues with the OS or application. If all is good then re-mirror the disks for redundancy.

NOTE: If patch fails, for roll-back you need to boot from the root-mirror disk and create all the SVM mirrors back on root-mirror disk from start and then re-mirror root-disk back with root-mirror disk.