Install Solaris w/o booting - possible?

[m@ Ashcraft]

Don't try this with FCAL disks.  See Sun infodoc 17643.

m@


Ravi Kuppanna wrote:
> 
> Well, this is certainly do-able and we have done this many times.  Same problem
> as yours, Client's don't like downtimes...
> 
> All you need is another machine of the same arch (sun4u, in your case) that has
> the OS of your choice installed in the way you want it. If not, if you can get
> hold of a sun4u box, install the OS and configure it. Once this is done, slice
> your new disk the way you want it, NFS mount the OS disk from your spare sun4u
> perform a dump-pipe-restore. After this dump, all the OS stuff is on the new
> disk, you can further configure it. Now, don't forget to install the bootblock
> on a sun4u machine onto this new raw device via installboot. Configure your new
> disk, change the boot-device and reboot -r.
> 
> If you know all the variables, this is real easy. If you are not really sure
> what you are getting into, this is not for you.
> 
> HTH
> 
> Ravi Kuppanna
> Mobil GIS - Technical Computing.
> 
> Gregg Mackenzie <gmackenz@ball.com> on 07/27/99 11:25:32 AM
> 
> Please respond to Gregg Mackenzie <gmackenz@ball.com>
> 
> To:   ssa-managers@Eng.Auburn.EDU
> cc:    (bcc: Ravi Kuppanna/C/Dallas/Mobil-Notes)
> Subject:  Install Solaris w/o booting - possible?
> 
> Question:  Is it possible to install Solaris without *booting*
>            from the cdrom?
> 
> Scenario:  E3000, six SSA 114s, Solaris 2.5.1, boot disk is an
>            SSA disk, mirrored in another SSA.  Two empty disks,
>            either in the E3000, or in the SSAs...probably
>            doesn't matter in this case.  Root disk filesystems
>            need to be repartitioned.
> 
>            The system is a production system, eg. the smaller
>            the outage window, the happier the customer will be.
> 
> I plan to upgrade to Solaris 2.6 by installing to one of the
> empty disks, replicating the customizations and localizations
> from the old root disk to the new root disk, and then changing
> the appropriate NVRAM values.
> 
> What I'm wondering is, is there any way to do the bulk of the
> installation without taking the system offline?  In other words,
> can I manually run whatever install program(s) need to be run
> against one of the empty disks as the target?
> 
> I seem to recall from the "olden days" (early Solaris 2.x, I
> think) that one could run a program called 'suninstall' in such
> a fashion--I only had to do it once, for a different reason, and
> I was very much a novice at the time, so my recollection of it
> may be faulty--but I don't see anything that resembles suninstall
> on the 2.6 CD.
> 
> I can't imagine I'm the first one to ever think of doing this,
> but I've searched the ssa-managers archives, sunsolve, and
> dejanews and haven't found any similar scenarios.  The closest
> I came was Sunsolve Infodoc 12161 for how to install 1.x and
> 2.x on the same machine.
> 
> Thanks for any help on this.
> 
> Gregg Mackenzie
> gmackenz@ball.com

-- 
Matthew Ashcraft,               |  
HQ Technical Support Specialist | "Argue for your limitations and sure
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