x86: What to Do If the SMF Boot Archive Service Fails During a System Reboot

This procedure applies to systems that are running the Oracle Solaris 10 release only.

Solaris 10 1/06: If the system crashes, the boot archive SMF service, svc:/system/boot-archive:default, might fail when the system is rebooted. If the boot archive service has failed, a message similar to the following is displayed when you run the svcs -x command:

svc:/system/boot-archive:default (check boot archive content)
 State: maintenance since Fri Jun 03 10:24:52 2005
Reason: Start method exited with $SMF_EXIT_ERR_FATAL.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-KS
   See: /etc/svc/volatile/system-boot-archive:default.log
Impact: 48 dependent services are not running.  (Use -v for list.)

svc:/network/rpc/gss:default (Generic Security Service)
 State: uninitialized since Fri Jun 03 10:24:51 2005
Reason: Restarter svc:/network/inetd:default is not running.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-5H
   See: gssd(1M)
Impact: 10 dependent services are not running.  (Use -v for list.)

svc:/application/print/server:default (LP print server)
 State: disabled since Fri Jun 03 10:24:51 2005
Reason: Disabled by an administrator.
   See: http://sun.com/msg/SMF-8000-05
   See: lpsched(1M)
Impact: 1 dependent service is not running.  (Use -v for list.)

To correct the problem, take the following action:

1. Reboot the system and select the failsafe archive option from the GRUB boot menu.

2. Answer y when prompted by the system to rebuild the boot archive.

   After the boot archive is rebuilt, the system is ready to boot.

3. To continue booting, clear the SMF boot archive service by using the following command.

# svcadm clear boot-archive

Note that you must become superuser or the equivalent to run this command.

For more information on rebuilding the GRUB boot archive, see How to Boot an x86 Based System in Failsafe Mode in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration and the bootadm(1M) man page.