Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles are popular collections of patches providing specific functionality. They contain an install script for ease of installation. Patch Clusters and Patch Bundles are provided for the Solaris OS; Solaris, shared component, and middleware patches for Java Enterprise System; and Solaris patches recommended for J2SE.
A Sun support contract which covers Solaris is required to access or download a Patch Cluster or Patch Bundle containing Solaris OS patches,and they may only be installed and used on systems covered by an active Sun support contract for Solaris
Notice Board:
This is the new look Patch Cluster and Patch Bundle Download Page. We hope you find it clearer and more informative. It replaces both the "Recommended Patch Clusters" and "Recommended and Security Patches" pages as the latter page was essentially just a better formatted subset of the former page. The names of the cluster download files have been preserved, so scripted access using wget does not change. The "Patch Finder" and "Patch Reports" functionality which were available from the "Recommended Patch Clusters" page are still available from the main "Patches and Updates" page.
Known issues and other information:
If downloading and unzipping any file over ca. 800Mb in size, please ensure you have installed the necessary patch which provides a fix for the unzip utility before you attempt to unzip the file, as specified in Infodoc 252447.
The Recommended and Sun Alert patch clusters provide very similar functionality as per their descriptions below. It is planned to merge these clusters in future.
Customers using the Sun Trunking Utility product need to follow the instructions in SunAlert 200701, prior to installing the any cluster containing the Gigabit driver patch.
As of April 1st 2009 Solaris 8 enters End-of-Service Life Phase 2. As such there will be no further updates to Solaris 8 OS patches contained in any patch cluster after this date.
The Solaris Recommended Patch Clusters contain the following Solaris Operating System patches:
The latest revision of the patch and package utility patches to help ensure correct patching operations.
The latest revision of any Solaris Operating System patch which address Sun Alert issues. These are patches which fix Security, Data Corruption, or System Availability issues.
Any patch that is required to correctly install the above patches.
The clusters are updated whenever a patch meeting the above inclusion criteria is released.
The Solaris Sun Alert Patch Clusters contain the following Solaris Operating System patches:
The latest revision of the patch and package utility patches to help ensure correct patching operations.
The minimum revision of any Solaris Operating System patch which address Sun Alert issues. These are patches which fix Security, Data Corruption, or System Availability issues.
Any patch that is required to correctly install the above patches.
The Sun Alert Patch Clusters provide the minimum amount of change required to obtain all available Solaris OS patches which address Security, Data Corruption, and System Availability issues.
The clusters are updated whenever a patch meeting the above inclusion criteria is released.
These Solaris Patch Bundles contain the equivalent set of patches that are pre-applied to the corresponding Solaris Update image.
They are provided for customers whose Change Control procedures make it difficult to upgrade but OK to patch. Applying these Patch Bundles is not equivalent to installing or upgrading to the corresponding Solaris Update as these patch bundles don't typically contain any new packages contained in the corresponding Solaris Update. If you require the functionality provided in such new packages, you must typically install or upgrade to the Solaris Update image. Applying these Patch Bundles will however bring pre-existing packages on a system up to the same patch level as the corresponding Solaris Update, providing customers with a more homogeneous environment, and providing customers with all functional enhancements to features which are entirely contained within pre-existing packages (such as Zones and ZFS functionality). Since Solaris Updates are intensely tested, standardizing on the same patch level as a Solaris Update provides a well tested baseline.
Solaris Update images contain some "Special" or "Script" patches which are only used to correct issues during the construction of the Solaris Update image.
Such patches have no function outside of the Solaris Update release build process and therefore are not released to SunSolve or included in these patch bundles. These Patch Bundles are chunked into several parts to aid download.
Please read the download instructions. After applying one of these Patch Bundles, please apply the Sun Alert or Recommended Patch Cluster to obtain all available Solaris OS patches which address Security, Data Corruption, and System Availability issues released since these Patch Bundles were created.
The Live Upgrade Zones Starter Patch Bundles are provided specifically for use on systems with non-global zones that are running Solaris 10 8/07 (Update 4) or an earlier Solaris 10 Update.
They provide a subset of the patches listed in Infodoc 206844.
Installing these patch bundles on the active boot environment will patch the system to the level required to enable use of Live Upgrade in a basic zones environment.
Live Upgrade itself can then be used to construct more advanced environments, for example to migrate to a ZFS root environment.
For more advanced Live Upgrade functionality, such as using Live Upgrade with ZFS Root, please consult Infodoc 206844.
Patch Cluster Name
Release Date
Cluster Size
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Solaris 10 SPARC Live Upgrade Zones Starter Patch Bundle
These Patch Clusters contain the latest revisions of Solaris patches required by Java Enterprise System. If you are running a recent Solaris Update your system may already contain the patches necessary to install Java Enterprise System.
These Patch Clusters are provided to support upgrading from Sun Java Enterprise System 2004Q2 (Release 2) to 2005Q1 (Release 3) & 2005Q4 (Release 4). These Patch Clusters include patches to some of the shared components contained in Sun Java Enterprise System Release 2, 3 & 4 on the Solaris Operating Environment.
These Patch Clusters contain the latest revision patches for the Java Enterprise System Release 5 (including Update Releases) on the target operating system version.
Patch Cluster Name
Release Date
Cluster Size
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Java ES 5 Accumulated Patch Cluster Solaris 10 SPARC
These Patch Clusters contain Solaris Operating System patches considered the most important and highly recommended Solaris Operating System patches that avoid the most critical system, user, or security related bugs which have been reported and fixed to date for J2SE customers.