Do I need to keep unzipped patch directories?

[joefox]

I remember reading something about the backup of patches that are installed. Is this backup have something to do with the directory created when unzipping the patch? Should I keep those directories? Thanks

 

[MikeLacey]

You only need to keep them until you are sure that you won't need to 'backout' the patch -- once you're sure they're OK you can delete them Mike
michael.j.lacey@ntlworld.com
Email welcome if you're in a hurry or something -- but post in tek-tips as well please, and I will post my reply here as well.

 

[cgswong]

What is the directory that contains the backup of patches. I read about it once but have forgotten the location now. I need to make some space on my server and deleteing these backups would certainly help. Thanks.

- Stuart

 

[joefox]

When I downloaded the patches from Sun, I unzipped them as such: "unzip 108899-01.zip" and it created a directory by the same name (minus .zip), so the directories I was interested in deleting were those created by unzipping the zip files. I'm not even sure if these are "backup" files I keep hearing mentioned?! There's a directory under /var/sadm/patch for each patch but it only contains two files. Is this the "backup" location?

 

[cgswong]

You probably have only applied those two patches, or someone has been removing the various directories cause my directory seems to contain all the patches I've ever applied (one subdirectory per patch). However, I'm not sure if this is the backup directory. I'm hoping someone else can give a definite answer cause I'd love to remove those files and make some space if it's just a backup directory and can be removed without problem.

I do know that after applying the patch you can safely remove the directory in which the patch was unzipped.

Regards.

- Stuart

 

[ChrisBroadway]

Hmm ...

"I do know that after applying the patch you can safely remove the directory in which the patch was unzipped."

YEP

I was under the impression that the /var/sadm/patch directory was required for backing out patches.. So if your confident that you'll never wanna deinstall a patch you can blow this lot away.. Try applying a patch with the -d option and I think you'll find that the /var/sadm/patch stuff doesn't get created AND you can't remove the patch ..



Chris