SUMMARY: manually modifying pkginfo data

From: Christopher L. Barnard (cbar44@tsg.cbot.com)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 14:18:36 EDT


I asked:

> When I upgrade the OS on a server, I prefer to do a "new install" to
> remove anything that may have inadvertently been installed unbenownst
> to me. Third party non-sun applications I just restore into place
> when I am done.
>
> One application uses Sun's package information. So when I copy it back
> into place it works fine, but pkginfo does not show that it is there anymore.
> This becomes a problem when this application needs to be patched. Its
> installation program does a pkginfo to make sure that the package is
> installed, and when pkginfo returns that it is not there, the patch will
> not apply. Reinstalling the application from scratch upon an OS upgrade
> is not really an option, because all local customizations are lost. So what
> I would like to do is manually add back into the package information that
> the package in question has been installed. Has anyone else done this?
> What files did you have to edit? TIA, and I will summarize.

The answer:

to paraphrase one answer I got: "you are entering a world of pain". While
I did get several responses along the lines of what files in /var/sadm/pkg
and /var/sadm/install would need to be edited, the potential for Something
Bad to happen, at the time of the change or several months later, is just
too great of a risk. What several people recommended is most likely what
I am going to try to do the next time this comes up. Install the package
from scratch to make pkginfo happy, and then overwrite it with the image
of the app before the upgrade. That way pkginfo will be happy, and I will
preserve local customizations.

Thanks to:

Alex Stade <alex@trdlnk.com>
Michael Hocke <mh103@nyu.edu>
Darren Dunham <ddunham@taos.com>
Jon Godfrey <Jon.Godfrey@primus.com>
Larye Parkins <LParkins@niaid.nih.gov>
"Malloy, Jim" <jim.malloy@convergys.com>
"Sethi, Samir (DCSA)" <SSethi@exchange.ml.com>
Justin Stringfellow <js70062@ms-egmp02-01.UK.Sun.COM>

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| Christopher L. Barnard O When I was a boy I was told that |
| cbarnard@tsg.cbot.com / \ anybody could become president. |
| (312) 347-4901 O---O Now I'm beginning to believe it. |
| http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/~cbarnard --Clarence Darrow |
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