The testimonials marshaled in Dr. Hung-Sheng Tsao's blog on Patch Check Advanced (PCA) attest to the excellence and value of this command line utility for patching and support his own assertion that PCA is "...the only tool you ever need for patch management, be it on a single machine or a complete network. Just one perl script, it doesn't need compilation nor installation, and it doesn't need root permissions to run. It works on all versions of Solaris, both SPARC and x86." The blog identifies the source of PCA as Martin Paul from Vienna's Institute of Scientific Computing.

Among its other capabilities that Dr. Hung-Sheng notes are that PCA generates lists of installed and missing patches for Sun Solaris systems and optionally downloads patches, resolving dependencies between patches and installing them in correct order.

Features

• Easily understandable and configurable format for the patch report, containing Recommended/Security status and age of a patch.

• Shows all missing Recommended/Security patches in one concise list. Only patches for packages which are actually installed are listed. Obsolete/Bad patches are ignored. Output can be formatted in HTML, with links to patch READMEs and downloads

• PCA analyzes the patch dependencies and lists required patches in the correct order for installation.

• If requested, PCA downloads patches from Sun's patch server and installs them. One patch, groups of patches, or all missing patches. Start it, let it run, and return to a fully patched system.

• Set up a local patch server and speed up downloads tremendously.

• Generates a complete patch report within seconds.

• Consists of only a single file of roughly 4000 lines, both code and documentation.

• Keeps users up to date about firmware and other unbundled patches.

• All the information about a machine needed for analysis can be read from files, so you can use PCA even if it doesn't run on the target machine.

• An auto update mechanism keeps PCA itself up-to-date.

The blog notes that usage of PCA is free of charge for private, educational and commercial use. No responsibility is taken for any damage caused by using PCA, whose source code can be modified to fit local needs as long as the modified versions of PCA that are shared with others have the original author and distribution list noted.

The blog presents detailed installation instructions for PCA, which requires no complicated compilation, installation or registration procedure, nor root permission.

More Information

PCA - Patch Check Advanced Homepage

Blog on Patch Check Advanced (PCA) - by Dr. Hung-Sheng Tsao [...read more...]

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