Summary

This chapter described software package administration. It began by describing the methods Sun uses to package its bundled and unbundled operating system software.

Then I described the various tools and methods used to install, verify, and remove these software packages on a Solaris system. Choose the tool with which you are most comfortable. The Solaris Product Registry and Web Start install wizard are the newest and recommended methods used to manage your software. Admintool has been available in Solaris since the early revisions and is not as robust as the Product Registry. When a bitmapped display is not available, the commands listed in Table 12.1 are always available.

In this chapter, I also explained that, occasionally, software deficiencies are discovered and need to be repaired. You learned how to obtain, install, and if necessary, uninstall software patches.

Chapter 20, “Backup and Recovery,” describes how to create a tape backup of everything you’ve installed. A good backup can save you time in the event of a hardware malfunction. With a good backup, you won’t need to retrace the steps of installing software packages or patches and setting up users.

Some of the subsequent chapters describe how to configure some of the software packages you’ve installed, such as the LP print service (Chapter 24, “The LP Print Service”), NFS (Chapter 22, “The NFS Environment”), NIS (Chapter 23, “Name Services”), and the common desktop environment (Chapter 25, “Administration and Configuration of CDE”).