Thanks to everyone who replied to me. Nearly everyone suggested
the same solution, which worked perfectly:
o Make sure the directory in which you untar the patch tarball,
and the entire patch directory tree are world-readable and -executable.
Some patches are installed by nobody which requires that the
hierarchy be accessible. Alternatively, you can create a user
called 'install' which has the same access as nobody:
install:x:0:1:installpatch braindamage:/:/bin/true
o Make sure your umask is 0 or 022 before untarring the patch.
Also, my apologies for bothering everyone since it was indeed in
the FAQ... I guess I need to read a little more closely next time. :)
Thanks again!
Individual messages follow:
>From bbrown@dottie.sna.com Wed Sep 17 20:36:47 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 16:53:47 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Barry Brown <bbrown@dottie.sna.com>
>To: sabrina@wwa.com
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>I presume you're installing as root.
>
>Make sure the patch directory and all of the directories below it have mode
>755 and all the files have mode 744. The easiest way to do it is run
>
> chmod -R og+rX patchdir
>
>or make sure your umask is 022 before untaring the patch.
>
>Also the patch parent directory should be readable and executable by the
>world. I usually install from /tmp to make sure this is so.
>
>Barry
>From jlee@thomas.com Wed Sep 17 20:36:52 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 16:56:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Joel Lee <jlee@thomas.com>
>To: Sabrina Downard <sabrina@wwa.com>
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>
>Solaris faq question #55 says,
>
>5.53) Patch installation often fails with "checkinstall" errors.
>
> When installing a patch, the Solaris 2.5+ patch installation
> procedure will execute the script "checkinstall" with uid nobody.
>
> If any of the patch files cannot be read by nobody or if any part
> of the path leading up to the patch directory an error similar to
> the following will appear:
>
> ./installpatch .
> Generating list of files to be patched...
> Verifying sufficient filesystem capacity (exhaustive method) ...
> Installing patch packages...
> pkgadd: ERROR: checkinstall script did not complete successfully
> ....
>
> You can workaround this in two ways, one is to make sure that
> nobody can read all patch files and execute a "pwd" in the patch
> directory or add an account "install" to /etc/passwd:
>
> install:x:0:1:installpatch braindamage:/:/bin/true
>
> Installpatch uses "nobody" as a fallback if it cannot find the "install"
> user.
>
>
>-- Joel
>
>--
>Joel Lee <jlee@thomas.com> | Network Administrator/System Programmer
>Thomas Brothers Inc., Irvine, California | http://www.thomas.com
> Disclaimer: The statements are my personal viewpoints only
> and has nothing to do with anyone, even my employer.
>From leslie@tigger.georgetown.edu Wed Sep 17 20:36:56 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:09:21 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Leslie E. Forte" <leslie@tigger.georgetown.edu>
>To: Sabrina Downard <sabrina@wwa.com>
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>
>
>Sabrina,
>
>I've had this problem a few times. Usually one of the following will
>resolve it:
>
>1) Install patches from /tmp. Copy the tar file (or however you are
>getting the patch) or directory to /tmp. Some patches insist on being
>installed from /tmp/patchdir.
>
>2) Do a chmod -R 777 /tmp/patchdir. Some patch installed run as "nobody"
>and fail when they do not have temporary write permissions to the install
>directory.
>
>3) Set your umask to 0. Sometimes that helps as well.
>
>Good Luck!
>
>Leslie
>
>From reineman1@llnl.gov Wed Sep 17 20:37:05 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 17:07:37 -0700 (PDT)
>From: reineman1@llnl.gov
>To: sabrina@wwa.com
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>Have you tried installpatch -u ? Also if you suspect something
>has changed in /var/sadm, that could definately screw things up,
>particularly /var/sadm/pkg. Typically the best solution for
>a messed up package database, is an OS rebuild. Tape restore is
>OK if you are positive no package manipulations were done since the
>backup.
>
>Rick
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Rick Reineman
>Lasers CAD&UNIX Systems Management
>Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
>reineman1@llnl.gov
>From rachel@nepean.uws.edu.au Wed Sep 17 20:37:14 1997
>Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 10:13:19 +1000 (EST)
>From: Rachel Polanskis <rachel@nepean.uws.edu.au>
>Reply-To: r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au
>To: Sabrina Downard <sabrina@wwa.com>
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>On Wed, 17 Sep 1997, Sabrina Downard wrote:
>
>> Installpatch is terminating.
>
>This one is an FAQ!
>The patch manager is broken n Solaris 2.5.1
>
>All I do is make sure the patch tree is readable by group other.
>
>just extract your patches and:
>
>chmod -R 755 105999-03
>
>and it should work.
>
>make sure the directory you extract the patch to is also readable
>by group other too...
>
>The other solution is to create a special user called "install"
>with the same access perms as "nobody"
>
>rachel
>
>
>Rachel Polanskis University of Western Sydney, Nepean
>Asst. UNIX Admin PO Box 10, Kingswood NSW 2747
>Systems && Operations Computing && Communications Division K'wood
>r.polanskis@nepean.uws.edu.au Phone: +61 (47) 360 291
>From Garry.Robbins@Labatt.com Wed Sep 17 20:37:19 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:16:41 -0400
>From: "Robbins, Garry" <Garry.Robbins@Labatt.com>
>To: sabrina@wwa.com
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>Be sure all files in the patch directory are
>world-readable?
>From mikey@nmsu.edu Wed Sep 17 20:37:24 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:33:39 -0600
>From: Mike Blandford <mikey@nmsu.edu>
>To: sabrina@wwa.com
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>
>make sure that when you extract the patch, umask is something like 022
>and not 077. The installpatch script changes uid somewhere in the
>process and if a non root user cant read the patch then it dies.
>
>Mikey
>From dellis@frycomm.com Wed Sep 17 20:37:28 1997
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 21:12:41 -0400
>From: Daniel Ellis <dellis@frycomm.com>
>To: sabrina@wwa.com
>Subject: Re: Problems applying patches to 2.5.1
>
>Sabrina Downard wrote:
>[snip]
>
>Make sure you untar the patch into a nice neutral directory like tmp and
>check the perms. I get the same error eveery dang time I start a patch
>and it is always something to do with permissions.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:12:03 CDT