Pre-verification and sequencing of patches

• US 9,009,694 B2
• Filed: 08/15/2002
• Issued: 04/14/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sun Microsystems Incorporated (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: DiRico, Nicholas J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nahar, Qamrun
• Application Number:
  US10/222,602
• Publication Number:
  US 20030220992A1
• Time in Patent Office: 4,625 Days
• Field of Search: 717168-178
• US Class Current: 717/168
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/453 Help systems

Abstract

The present invention provides an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) patch environment for installing a patch on the targeted systems. A system administrator or other authorized user interfaced with a machine may perform the installation of a patch on the machine using a software wizard. Additionally, the Wizard pre-verifies the patch dependencies (pre-installed software) required by the patch and checks the target systems to ensure the target systems possess the requisite dependencies. Once the target systems have been validated and the required dependencies identified on the target systems, the sequencing algorithm sorts patches in correct order before applying patches to the target systems. The user can remove the patch from the pre-validated patch list about to be applied to the target system. The patch dependency is checked before removing the patch from the pre-validated patch list for proper removal order.

Claims

1. In an electronic device that is interfaced with a network to which other devices are interfaced, a method, comprising:

receiving input selecting a patch to add to a patch list and selecting one or more of the other devices as one or more target devices of an installation group on which to install the selected patch;

in response to receiving the input, validating whether device hardware architecture and operating system attributes of each of the target devices in the installation group satisfy device hardware architecture and operating system requirements of the selected patch;

in response to validating that the device hardware architecture and operating system attributes of each of the target devices in the installation group satisfy the device hardware architecture and operating system requirements of the selected patch, determining dependencies for the selected patch, wherein said determining dependencies comprises determining additional software required to be installed prior to installation of the selected patch;

querying each of the target devices in the installation group to retrieve a respective software list of currently installed software;

based at least in part on said querying, determining that one or more of the target devices cannot satisfy the determined dependencies for the selected patch and dropping the one or more target devices that cannot satisfied the determined dependences from the installation group;

determining a sequence in which to install the selected patch and one or more other patches on the patch list, wherein the sequence is based on a reverse order of dependencies between the patches on the patch list; and

installing, in the determined sequence, the selected patch and the one or more other patches on the patch list on the remaining target devices in the installation group, wherein a given patch of the one or more other patches is not installed on a given device of the remaining target devices if the given patch is listed within the respective software list of the given device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if the selected patch has conflicts with an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group has a conflict with the selected patch.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if the selected patch is made obsolete by an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group is made obsolete by the selected patch.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receive the input and based at least in part on said querying, validating one or more packages for the selected patch with one or more packages for one of the target devices.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to said installing, receiving input to remove a patch from the patch list;

in response to receiving the input to remove a patch from the patch list, determining whether the patch to be removed has any required dependencies on the patch list; and

preventing removal of the patch from the patch list in response to determining that the patch has a required dependency on the patch list.

7. In an electronic device that is interfaced with a network to which other devices are interfaced, a non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium holding computer-executable steps for a method, said method comprising:

receiving input selecting a patch to add to a patch list and selecting one or more of the other devices as one or more target devices of an installation group on which to install the selected patch;

in response to receiving the input, validating whether device hardware architecture and operating system attributes of each of the target devices in the installation group satisfy device hardware architecture and operating system requirements of the selected patch;

in response to validating that the device hardware architecture and operating system attributes of each of the target devices in the installation group satisfy the device hardware architecture and operating system requirements of selected patch, determining dependencies for the selected patch, wherein said determining dependencies comprises determining additional software required to be installed prior to installation of the selected patch;

querying each of the target devices in the installation group to retrieve a respective software list of currently installed software;

based at least in part on said querying, determining that one or more of the target devices cannot satisfy the determined dependencies for the selected patch and dropping the one or more target devices that cannot satisfied the determined dependences from the installation group;

determining a sequence in which to install the selected patch and one or more other patches one the patch list, wherein the sequence is based on a reverse order of dependencies between the patches on the patch list; and

installing, in the determined sequence, the selected patch and the one or more other patches on the patch list on the remaining target devices in the installation group, wherein a given patch of the one or more other patches is not installed on a given device of the remaining target devices if the given patch is listed within the respective software list of the given device.

8. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if the selected patch has conflicts with an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group.

9. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group has a conflict with the selected patch.

10. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if the selected patch is made obsolete by an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group.

11. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, checking if an existing software patch presently on one of the target devices in the installation group is made obsolete by the selected patch.

12. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

in further response to receiving the input and based at least in part on said querying, validating one or more packages for the selected patch with one or more packages for one of the target devices in the installation group.

14. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises:

prior to said installing, receiving input to remove a patch from the patch list;

in response to receiving the input to remove a patch from the patch list, determining whether the patch to be removed has any required dependencies on the patch list; and

preventing removal of the patch from the patch list in response to determining that the patch has a required dependency on the patch list.