Chapter 1 HP-UX Patches and Patch Management

Table of Contents

How to Get Patches
Where to Start

Patches are software that HP releases to deliver incremental updates to a system. Patches are best known for delivering defect fixes, but also deliver new functionality and features, enable new hardware, and update firmware. You can use HP-UX patches to update HP-UX software without having to completely reinstall a system application. For a description of patches, see Chapter 3: “HP-UX Patch Overview”.

You may wonder why you should be concerned with patch management. HP recommends that you address patch management to reduce the risk of problems such as system hangs, panics, memory leaks, data corruption, application failures, and security breaches. If your job involves any of the following concerns, then you need patch management:

Having proper system functionality and performance
Maintaining system security
Maintaining system reliability and availability
Obtaining the latest system enhancements and functionality
Reading about problems and solutions before you encounter them
Limiting the number of patches to install if you encounter a problem
Limiting the amount of time required to troubleshoot problems

Patch management involves any of the following tasks:

Selecting or acquiring patches
Applying patches
Updating previously applied patches with more current patches
Verifying patches
Testing patches
Listing patches already applied to existing software
Copying patches
Maintaining repositories, or depots, of patches for easy selection
Committing applied patches
Removing or rolling back applied patches

For a description of patch management, see Chapter 4: “Patch Management Overview”.




	NOTE: You can approach patch management in many different ways with no one approach being the correct way. You must base decisions regarding patch management on the specifics of your individual situation. Even then, there may be more than one reasonable path.

Chapter 1 HP-UX Patches and Patch Management

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