To determine which method is best for downloading and applying patches to your system, see Selecting the Best Method for Applying Patches and Updates.
To get started using Patch Manager, find the situation that best describes your patch management environment.
Your client system is directly connected to the Internet.
You are ready to manage patches by using Patch Manager. See Accessing the Sun Patch Manager Command-Line Interface.
Your client system is connected to the Internet by means of a web proxy.
You must first specify the host name and port of the web proxy. If required, also specify the user name and password associated with the web proxy. See How to Specify Your Web Proxy (Command Line).
After you change your configuration, see Accessing the Sun Patch Manager Command-Line Interface.
You need a user name and a password to access patches from the Sun patch server.
If you need to obtain a user name and password, register at .
Then, specify the user name and password for each client system on which you run Patch Manager. See How to Specify a User Name and Password With Which to Obtain Patches (Command Line).
After you change your configuration, see Accessing the Sun Patch Manager Command-Line Interface.
The following tasks are supported by Sun Patch Manager:
Performing patch management operations on a remote system
You can use the smpatch command in remote mode to perform patch management operations on a remote system. In local mode, the smpatch command can only be run on the local system.
Analyzing a system for patches
Performing scheduled patch analyses
Use the cron command to run the smpatch analyze command.
Downloading individual patches
Resolving patch dependencies
Run smpatch
update or smpatch analyze -i patch-id to
resolve patch dependencies. Note that if you run smpatch add,
patch dependencies are not resolved.
Updating a system with patches
Running while the system is in single-user mode (limited operations of local mode with smpatch only).
Operating on patch lists
Configuring the patch management environment for your system