Solaris Flash Installation

The Solaris Flash installation enables you to create a single reference installation of the Solaris operating environment and other software applications on a system. This system is called the master system. Then, you can replicate that reference installation on a number of systems by using the Change Manager. These systems are called managed hosts. Installing managed hosts with the Solaris Flash archive is a four-part process that involves the following:

1. Installing the master system. Select a system and use any of the Solaris installation methods to install the Solaris operating environment and any other software.

2. Installing the Change Manager agent software on the master system. The agent software is required for Change Manager to remotely control managed hosts once the software stack has been installed.

3. Creating the Solaris Flash archive. The Solaris Flash archive is a single file that contains a software stack. The archive is a copy of all the files on the master system.

4. Installing the Solaris Flash archive on managed hosts. When you install the Solaris Flash archive on a managed host, all of the files in the archive are copied to that managed host. The newly installed managed host now has the same installation configuration as the original master system.

See Chapter 4, Creating a Deployable Solaris Flash Archive (Tasks) for information about creating Solaris Flash archives.

Managed hosts are not updated by adding packages or installing patches. Instead, you update and reconfigure the master system. Then, you create a new Solaris Flash archive that contains the updated software stack. The new archive can be installed on the managed hosts in a single step.

The Solaris Flash archives must be imported to the Change Manager repository before they can be installed on managed hosts.