summary: "patch level" (and thanks

thanks again to the tons of folks out there again.with great answers.  However
they all seem to point to KERNEL revision levels, not a "general" patch level
for the machine.

Many of you folks gave me the "obvious" (is it really ever?) answer of
uname -a (-all) option which gives :
SunOS tape 5.8 Generic_108528-19 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-80 (uname -a)
or  uname -v (version) option:  Generic_108528-19 (uname -v)

It was also suggested I look at /etc/release (good details, incudes a date)

A Few of you told me I am searching for the "holy grail" of simplicity,
(someone said,
   " There is really no TRUE answer but most people use the kernel patch
level" I say, "Good", at least
I know I wasn't going crazy in NOT finding the answer!" (Wife would say,
"already there, too late!")

 AND..
 "Unfortunately the term patch_level is pretty bogus. Sometimes what mgmt req
is impossible to define, but if the req is kernel patch (used to be called
jumbo patch)
then a uname -a is fine. But you may be on the latest patch  lvel but also
have a MU
 applied then the only way to get a report on the MUlevel then it is a copy
 of /etc/release... all v confusing, so I usually say   patch-lveel is kernel
patch level
 and just give a uname -a..... now you need   to convince your management but
 take a look at the cst package from Sun its  free."


And Lars who wrote: Dunno if there's such a tool, but I have taken to copying
the patch cluster
patch_order file to /.patch_order.<date>, e.g. /.patch_order.14032003,where
<date>
is the date from the CLUSTER_README.
so if your patch_order file contains: (say: 108528-17, 108652-62, 108714-07)
you would then save it as
<somedirectory>/patch_order.MAR2503 and that would be the list of the latest
patches on THAT system.

AND Finally : Pascal suggested that he's trying to develop something (still in
testing,etc) but here's the link:
http://www.azoria.com/whatabout ..


OK. so Thanks for the sanity check.
My solution, which really didn't help* was to install the sunExplorer package,
and send myself the output on a weekly basis.  At least I have a permanent
baseline for the systems now.

* it didn't help because the amount of information from the SUNWexplor package
is HUGE, (is readable under windowz),  and isn;t automated.  HOWEVER, HIGHLY
recommended if you dont /havent gathered info on all your systems.

Of course SUN also advertise PatchPro Expert (a java applet) as

AND (last one I promise)
...several people suggested that I use the "Patchcheck" tool from Sun's site
called "patchdiag".
http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patchk
Once the tool is installed, you routinely download from Sun's site the latest,
greatest
patchdiag-xref file.  ...file through patchdiag installed on your system and
it generates
a report listing the latest patch versions avail and the patch levesl
installed on your system.
SUN says:
    Patch Check determines the patch levels on your system against Sun's
   Recommended and Security patch list. Additionally, it operates from input
   files and lists all patches that pertain to packages installed on the
system

(Sounds lovely...)

thanks again to all

--original follows--
 Subject: RE: Simple (?) question- find "patch level" installed on a box?

 I asked:

I am trying to do "machine" diagrams of my 12+ SUN "boxen" (all sparc)
(ranging from 5.6 to 5.9)

I want to find out the latest patch information, but all I've been
able to get (so far) is the "showrev -p" which give tons of data, but can't
give me a ONE line summary of the latest and greatest patches installed.

Is there such an animal?
My management wants to keep the following information on the overall systems
graph:
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