How Sun Update Connection Proxy really works

Question

Hi,
Apolgies if this question is in the FAQ, but the FAQ link in the header text of this forum gives me a 404.
I've been trawling the docs on Sun Update Connection Proxy and trying to understand how it works with regards caching. The docs are quite detailed in how to set it up, for example how to point to a proxy using http://<proxy-name>:3816 etc., and how to install patchsvr and how to start it.
What seems to be missing from the manuals IMHO (and this all might become blatantly obvious once I've been using it a while) is any details on how the smpatch update process works end-to-end through a proxy, e.g. I know how to change the cache location using the patchsvr command but how and when is anything stored in that location? What are all the files and directories that reside under /var/sadm/spool, and how many of these relate to a proxy (LPS) server?
Is smpatch supposed to clear out the .jar files in there or do I need to set up a job to do that regularly?
Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Answer 1

Inside /var/sadm/spool there are several directories, I won't describe all of them, but for most purposes this should be enough:
Client:
/var/sadm/spool/cache/Database - stores patchsets (current2, etc)
/var/sadm/spool/cache/xml - stores the MoTD files
/var/sadm/spool/cache/entitlement - stores the entitlement file (note this is generated by the server on each request)
/var/sadm/spool/cache/updatemanager/analysis.results - if you have the swupAuto cron job, this directory is used to hold analysis to speed up UM launch
/var/sadm/spool/cache/ReadMe - holds the patch readme's (mostly for use with UM)
/var/sadm/spool/cache/collection - holds a file containing information about available patchsets
/var/sadm/spool/cache/category - holds a file describing the types of patches (currently Update Tools, Security, Recommended, and Generic)
/var/sadm/spool/sunucLog - holds job_history.log
Proxy:
/var/sadm/spool/patchsvr - this holds all files required for analysis and patches with URL-encoded filenames, the files used to be stored in a more hierarchical directory structure, but this changed a few patch revisions ago.
As for cleaning, in general it is safe to delete all files under /var/sadm/spool/cache/ as all of the patches are stored at /var/sadm/spool/ and most other files should be replaced on a regular basis automatically, however you may want to remove all of the patches too once you have completed your patching sessions - this is not done automatically. On the proxy you might not want to be so thorough - you would normally want to keep the patches (or at least keep the most recent ones - 180 days in this example):
# cd /var/sadm/spool/patchsvr
# ls | grep -v all_signed | xargs rm
# find /var/sadm/spool/patchsvr/ -mtime +180 -exec rm {} \;Does this answer your questions, or do you need further explanation?