Configuration and Patch Verification on Solaris Systems

Solaris patch levels can be difficult to manage any time that more than a few systems are involved. Sun provides the PatchPro, Patch Manager and Patchdiag utilities, as well as providing the Explorer 1 script, but these are not as customizable as is sometimes required in a non-standard installation. In particular, these tools do not give a good sense whether or not there are security related patches that need to be installed. In this paper, I discuss two configuration monitoring scripts which I have used to ensure that systems are up to patch and configuration standards. I have found these scripts is to be transparent enough to allow significant customization, but powerful enough to check for most key configuration issues.