Solaris Installation via NFS mounted CDROM

[Smuckers]

I have an earlier release of Sol10 in a cdrom which I booted from, and I
have NFS mounted another server that has the newest sol 10 release. I
want to install the newest version of Sol10 through the NFS mount. This
is a remote server and I wanted to try and do this without sending the
DVD to the remote location.

Can't I run the installer once its nfs'd from the server?

I tried finding info on it, but it seems to indicate that I need to set
up a boot/jumpstart server etc, which seems sorta silly if I have the
system booted and I'm using the LOM to run everything.

Thanks :)

Michelle

[Udo Grabowski]

You want live_upgrade (5).

[Smuckers]

Live upgrade is if your booted off internal disks I thought with
read/write access?

I'm currently booted off a DVD (RO) with an earlier version of Solaris
10 (5/08 I think).

I want to install Solaris 10 (10/08) from a remote mounted DVD on
another server.

[Mark]

Hi Michelle,

So the machine you are trying to install/upgrade is remote to you, but
"on your network"? Can I ask why you are booted off a DVD? Live
Upgrade is probably the right solution here, but yes, it is assumed
you have a running system already.

What you are trying to do won't work. Or at least I don't believe it
will work ... an educated guess on my part.

Mark

[Smuckers]

hey mark,

This is a remote server (v440) that I had actually sent a solaris 10
(08/07) DVD over and had someone put it in the cdrom.

I am sitting with the server booted from the 08/07 DVD in single user mode.

After finding out that the recommended patch cluster is over 1GB, I
decided that I should just install the latest Sol 10 (10/08) from DVD
since I just burned some dvds with it.

In order to give the v440 access to the new solaris dvd, I put the dvd
in my SUN workstation here, shared it, and then did an nfs mount from
the v440 to the /cdrom on my workstation thinking I could possibly just
install it remotely off the nfs (different subnets) while in a single
user mode on the remote v440 server.

I guess its a bit unique of situation, and I just lose a day if I have
to get the 10/08 release DVD sent to the remote location.

Its a bit of a weird situation :)

Michelle

[Mark]

Hi Michelle,

A (nearly) perfectly normal situation! The only abnormal part is you
have the remote system booted from its DVD. I don't think you can just
run the installer, but by all means, give it a shot!

Is the V440 booted off DVD because it does not have an OS installed?
The only way for you to use your local NFS exported DVD is if you have
a functioning install on the remote system. You could then use Live
Upgrade. You will either need to ship out the new DVD, or do a quick
install from the 8/07 DVD and then Live Upgrade over the wire from
your local 10/08 DVD. If this is a first install, you need JumpStart,
either in the form of a JumpStart server, or some install media (like
the DVD) which is just JumpStart under the hood.

Cheers,
Mark

[Darren Dunham]

Smuckers <moo...@nasa.gov> wrote:
> Live upgrade is if your booted off internal disks I thought with
> read/write access?
>
> I'm currently booted off a DVD (RO) with an earlier version of Solaris
> 10 (5/08 I think).
>
> I want to install Solaris 10 (10/08) from a remote mounted DVD on
> another server.

Pretty easy to do if you set up a jumpstart server. That's the first
way to go if possible. Otherwise....

I've never tried this before, but you should be able to go through the
first section of the install where it does the system configuration
(network, hostname, timezone, etc.) Then when it starts the install,
abort and get to a shell.

If networking isn't up, bring it up and try to start the nfs client (I
wonder if you can just svcadm it up?). Then unmount "/cdrom" on the
client and mount the same point on the remove DVD as "/cdrom".

If you do that, re-run Suninstall (SunInstall?) and see if it proceeds.

--
Darren