Modifying Sun Java Enterprise System installation or completely removing it on Solaris 10

I wrote other posts describing why and how I installed components from Sun Microsystems' Sun Java Enterprise System 5 (JES from now on) on Solaris. It may sound somewhat silly, but one of the questions related to the JES installer I heard so far is how software can be uninstalled. That's strange, and more if you consider the nature of Solaris 10 package management system. Somehow, having a GUI makes the situation more complicated, because a person unfamiliar with Solaris 10 and with Sun's way of distributing software would expect the same installer to do the job. Whoever knows of its existence may also also think that prodreg is sufficient to perform the uninstallation, but its not, for the reasons I will clarify soon.

The worst thing, in my humble opinion, is that Sun's documentation is usually good and very detailed. For every product I'm trying to remember, there's always a detailed installation document. What's not so clear to the newbie, in reality, is that documentation is there to be read. If you feel like doing it, read this blog and go here, where you can find complete information about JES installations. You should read it carefully while planning your installations/upgrades/uninstallations.

Here's the long story short.

How the JES installer works

The JES installer is an utility that eases the installation and the configuration of a set of server-side products which are bundled together. The installer also takes care of interdependencies between products, which may be complex, with various preinstallation and postinstallation procedures. The JES installer for Solaris uses the usual operating system package management system to deploy package on a host. For the same reason, the JES installer also provides an uninstallation utility which should be used when removing JES components instead of removing pagkages with other means, such as pkgrm or prodreg.

JES installation utilities

The JES installer can be found on the directory which corresponds to the platform you're installing and its called installer. This is the program you'll launch when installing JES for the first time. If you invoke it with no arguments, a GUI will be displayed and you will be able to choose the packages you need and perform your installation.

Even if having a GUI gives you the idea that everything will be managed for you by it, you're wrong. Read the documents before performing the installation of any document.

Patching installer

If JES has already been installed or if you need to patch the installer itself, you will find another copy (packaged) of the installer in the /var/sadm/prod/sun-entsys5u1i/Solaris_{x86,sparc} directory. Once the JES installer has been patched, that's the copy that should be used when installing or modyfing the current installation.

JES uninstaller

Once the JES installer has installed some of the products of the JES distribution, you will find the uninstallation utility in /var/sadm/prod/SUNWentsys5u1. The uninstaller, as the installer, can be run either in graphical, text or silent mode. Due to the complexity of the relationships between the component, an uninstallation should be carefully planned, too. Once more time: read the docs.

Uninstaller limitations

The JES uninstaller has some limitations, including the following:

• it only uninstalls software installed with the installer
• it does not remove shared components
• it does not support remote uninstallations
• some uninstallation behavior depends on the components being removed and it does not limit to data or configuration files.
• it does not unconfigure the Access Manager SDK on the web server.