Sidai team: notes on installing Solaris
These are notes about installing Solaris from scratch. Reading these notes is no substitute for (a) reading the documentation, or (b) knowing what you're doing :-)Before you install Solaris...
Perhaps review our list of things to save before an OS reinstall...Booting into a Solaris install
I was doing Solaris 8 with a CD (NB: the `Solaris 8 Software 1 of 2', not the `Solaris Installation' one), so I typed boot cdrom at the prom monitor (boot prompt).Basic Solaris install
Things that came along, other than the obvious:- Locale: I took Great Britain (choice 17),
because that's where I am, but I don't have Euro key,
so not the Euro variant.
- For name service, I chose plain `DNS', but I forgot
to fill in one of the `search' fields, and it did not
do what I wanted -- it dropped all the info I'd given.
(Fill in at least one of those search thingies.)
- I opted for `Developer System Support', instead of
`End User System Support'. This is my traditional choice,
and I've not regretted it.
- I did `AutoLayout' of the disk(s), with a quick
`Customize...' to follow. The disk configs `database' may
include commentary on interesting choices made...
- After a reboot, it asked for the second software CD, and all of that proceeded very boringly.
Solaris post-install
One thing to consider after installing any OS is what to get rid of. The less you have installed, the less there is to go-wrong/get-broken-into/etc.Alex Noordergraaf has written a Sun BluePrint OnLine on Solaris 8 minimization, which may help with a `methodology' for the task.
Patching up a Solaris install
A set of Solaris CDs may come with a `maintenance update' (MU) -- a set of tested patches for contract customers -- and this would be sane thing to apply right after a raw Solaris install. (How do you get newer MU CDs?)Assuming you have Sun support (and therefore a SunSolve account), go to SunSolve, login, and grab what you need. I always just grab the latest `Recommended and Security Patches' bundle.
Park a copy of the bits on the machine to be patched (because you won't have network access once in single-user).
For applying such patches, you're best to do it in single-user mode: ``init s''. You're gonna reboot at the end, anyway...
As root, unpack whatever you've got (e.g. 2.6_Recommended.tar.Z), then run ./install_cluster -nosave, [-nosave if your `/var' is too small], check over the log, run `patchdiag' to examine the final state of the host, rebooted...
Adding individual patches: We do these through the good graces of the Sidai sun-patches proto-package.