I used to be able to download Solaris patches from ftp.sunsolve.com, and my Symantec patches from ftp.veritas.com.  Now both companies have completely disabled our ability to do that.   I haven't heard a single reason for this that makes any sense.  All I know is that getting patches from these two companies is now more difficult than ever.

In the case of Sun, you have to sign up for a sunsolve account.  So far, it doesn't look like you'll have to have a support contract to download OS patches, but it's certainly hinted that this might be the case in the very near future.  At least in the case of sun, there's a URL that I can point wget to in order to download the patch I need.  (Sun does this automated "we'll manage your patches for you" tool, but I'm a bit old school in this area.  I'll download my own patches, thank you.)

In the case of Symantec,  there is no direct URL to the patch in question. Once you find the patch you need (which is NO easy thing), you are presented with a "download" link.  When you click on that, it opens a download process in the background. There is no direct link that you can pass to wget.

Do the people in charge at these companies not realize that many of us are administering systems over remote links that do not have web browsers running locally on the server?  The web browser often runs only on our desktop.  This means that if I can't use ftp, and I can't use wget or something like it, I have to download the patch(es) to my laptop, then scp them to my server, then install them. WOW, what a pain.

Come on, Sun and Symantec.  Make it easier to get patches.