Managing an IPS publisher on Solaris 11

Maybe the administration of an IPS publisher doesn't seem so important compared to other activities, but it's a fundamental concept that can be used to explain other complex processes. It is surprising that these little details can help us with daily administration. So, as we've been using some repository commands since the beginning of the chapter, it's now time to learn more related commands.

Getting ready

To follow this recipe, it's necessary that we have a system (physical or virtual) running Oracle Solaris 11; we log in to the system as the root user and open a terminal.

How to do it…

To list existing publishers, we execute the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg publisher
PUBLISHER                   TYPE     STATUS P LOCATION
solaris                     origin   online F http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/
solarisstudio               origin   online F https://pkg.oracle.com/solarisstudio/release/
training                    origin   online F http://localhost:8888/
Symantec     origin   online F file:///root/SFHA601/dvd2-sol_x64/sol11_x64/pkgs/VRTSpkgs.p5p/

If we require more information about a specific publisher, we can gather it by executing the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg publisher training
            Publisher: training
                Alias: 
           Origin URI: http://localhost:8888/
              SSL Key: None
             SSL Cert: None
          Client UUID: 8d121db2-39c7-11e3-8ae9-8800275685b8
      Catalog Updated: October 27, 2013 01:05:46 AM 
              Enabled: Yes

Among all these publishers, one is the preferential one. We display which one is preferential by running the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg publisher -P
PUBLISHER                   TYPE     STATUS P LOCATION
solaris                     origin   online F http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/

Needless to say, sometimes the administrator might have to change the preferred publisher; this task can be done by executing the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg publisher –P
PUBLISHER                   TYPE     STATUS P LOCATION
solaris                     origin   online F http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/
root@solaris11:~# pkg set-publisher -P training
root@solaris11:~# pkg publisher
PUBLISHER                   TYPE     STATUS P LOCATION
training                    origin   online F http://localhost:8888/
solaris                     origin   online F http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/
solarisstudio               origin   online F https://pkg.oracle.com/solarisstudio/release/
Symantec                    origin   online F file:///root/SFHA601/dvd2-sol_x64/sol11_x64/pkgs/VRTSpkgs.p5p/

Returning to the old setting is straightforward. This is done using the following command:

root@solaris11:~# pkg set-publisher -P solaris

An overview of the recipe

The main idea of this recipe was to change the primary publisher using the pkg set-publisher command. Sometimes, it's an advisable procedure to enforce or valorize such a repository.