Solaris zone patching

Patch Management for Solaris supports zone patching on Solaris 10 endpoints.

Note: This guide uses the term non-global zone to refer to a local zone.

The Patches for Solaris site contains the Fixlet content that allows for global and non-global (whole root) zones patching.

The Solaris zones technology provides a way to efficiently manage and use resources by allowing you to have isolated software applications and services.

Note: This guide does not cover the steps to create and configure Solaris zones. For comprehensive information about zones, see the Oracle System Administration Guide: Oracle Solaris Containers-Resource Management and Oracle Solaris Zones at: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19044-01/sol.containers/817-1592/index.html.

Oracle uses the SUNW_PKG_ALLZONES patch package to determine the patch type. Patches with SUNW_PKG_ALLZONES=true only allow the installation to all zones, both the global and non-global zones. Oracle forces the installation on the global zone, and then changes are propagated to all non-global zones. The Fixlet content for such patches provide only one installation action.

Patches with SUNW_PKG_ALLZONES=false allow the installation to occur in either the global or non-global zone. The Fixlet content for such patches has two installation actions.

For detailed information about patching zones, see Patching global and non-global zones.