Solaris 10 Update 10 Eminent and Imminent

Oracle Solaris 10 Update 10

Oracle's Solaris and SPARC public road map is pretty clear - Solaris 10 Update 10 release is expected 2H 2011 with Solaris 10 Update 11 scheduled for 2H 2012.

In a little more than 1 month away, Oracle OpenWorld 2011 is scheduled (October 2-6, 2011) to occur, which means significant announcements!

Solaris 10 Kernel Patch ID's

The Solaris patch id's for Solaris 10 Update 10 (and beyond) have been updated on Oracle's Solaris Patch Corner blog. It seems Update 10 is named 8/11 (or August 2011), which means it is scheduled to be released around now and is the talk of the town.

Solaris 10 SPARC Kernel PatchIDs	Solaris 10 x86 Kernel PatchIDs	Description
147440-01 to 147440-xx	147441-01 to 147441-xx	Kernel Bug Fixes post Solaris 10 8/11 (Update 10)
144500-19 only	144501-19 only	Solaris 10 Update 10 Kernel PatchID
144488-01 to 144488-17	144489-01 to 144489-17	Kernel Bug Fixes post Solaris 10 9/10 (Update 9)
142909-17 only	142910-17 only	Solaris 10 9/10 (Update 9) Kernel PatchID

2010-08 Features

Last year, some features were known to be rolled into Solaris 10 Update 10.

...indications on the following:

* RDSv3 for use with Oracel RAC

* PSARC/2007/587 Volo Low Latency Socket Framework

* PSARC/2010/108 zil synchronicity

* Adobe reader for X86 version 9.3.X

* Lightning Thunderbird extension for Oracle Beehive

With the zil synchronicity update it seems likely that

the next update, just as the last few, will get a large

backport of ZFS code from Solaris Next, but with some

features turned off, deduplication will be still be

disable in update 10. This would release will probably

also include support for the new SPARC T processors with

better single thread performance...

The SPARC T4 processor support is expected shortly.

2010-11 Features

Some additional features to Solaris 10 Update 10 were leaked the following month.

...good additions besides the bug fixes.

* IPfilter IPv6 NAT support

* 10Gb Ethernet support for Mellanox ConnectX-2 chipset

* SSH Support for ChrootDirectory and ConnectTimeout

* PSARC/2008/256 Native LDAP standalone tools (Duckwater Phase 0)

* Updated FireFox to 3.6.8+ and Thunderbird 3.1+

The ZFS update should include bits similar to snv_148 which

among other things include the following:

* RAID-Z/mirror hybrid allocator

* Missing log import (PSARC/2010/292) (CR 6733267)

* ZIL synchronicity PSARC/2010/108

* read-only import (PSARC 2010/306)

There might also be an update to the bundled samba which is a bit overdue. 

2011-01 Features

There appears to be a ZFS refresh bundled into Oracle Solaris 10 Update 10.

Solaris 10 update 10 ZFS refresh

The internal builds of Solaris 10 8/11 (update 10) have had another

refresh of the ZFS code. It is now be synced with snv_153 which is

a even later build than Solaris 11 Express 2010.11 is based on. Also

related to storage this update will support the LSI SAS 2308 HBA and

the LSI SSS 6200 Solid State Storage.

2011-08 Features

A list of the patches comprising Solaris 10 Update 10 hit the internet.

SunOS 5.10: Solaris kernel patch

General informations

* This is a security patch

* Release date: 2011-08-04

* Detected status: RELEASED

* Synopsis: SunOS 5.10: Solaris kernel patch

* Archive size: 75925271 bytes (72.41 MBytes)

* Keywords: Patch, security, file, pass, audit, kernel,

descriptors, management, block, limit, s, acl, statd,

framework, permission, recursive, linker, account, LWP,

unix98, unix03, libmtmalloc, mtmalloc, pmap, ed, psrset,

sata, alloc, sysacct, loin, ssrv,

* Architecture: sparc sparc.sun4u sparc.sun4v

* Solaris Release: 10

* SunOS Release: 5.10

* Unbundled Product:

* Unbundled Release:

* Xref: This patch available for x86 as patch 144501

* Files: click here

* View README

* View differences between README versions

* Download at Oracle MOS

Linker Updates

New features for the Linker may be added to Solaris 10 Update 10.

Solaris 10 Update 10 Release
The -z rescan-now, -z recan-start, and -z rescan-end options provide additional flexibility in specifying archive libraries to a link-edit. See Position of an Archive on the Command Line.

Mistaken Early Release

It seems Oracle mistakenly released Solaris 10 Update 10 early to their Downloads section.

Friday (2011/08/12) I went to the Solaris Download page and Update 10 was available for download. Today I go back to the page and it has reverted back to Update 9. Anybody know what's up? Has Update 10 been released or not?
...
FWIW - What I'm hearing from my sources is that the ISO that was available IS the Update 10 that will be released. It will be officially released when the documentation is complete.

EMC PowerPath

If you are an EMC PowerPath user, Solaris 10 Update 10 should NOT be installed, until EMC 5.3 patch release has been made available. Please see NOTE 9 in the patch README.

NOTE 9:  Do not install this patch on systems running

       EMC PowerPath, as all currently released EMC

       PowerPath versions (as of August 18th 2011)

       are incompatible with this patch.

       EMC PowerPath is using a private Solaris

       structure which was modified in this patch

       to fix a race condition. Applications

       should not use private Solaris interfaces

       as they are subject to change.

       EMC PowerPath Engineering is working on

       a 5.3 patch release to resolve this issue

       and have published ETA emc275344 on

       https://powerlink.emc.com,

       which contains further information.

Failure to abide by this patch release note is not pleasant.

In Conclusion

Oracle's release of Solaris 10 Update 10, heads and shoulders above the other patch updates, is probably moments away...