Guidelines for Upgrading

When you upgrade a boot environment with the latest operating environment, you do not affect the active boot environment. The new files merge with the inactive boot environment critical file systems, but shareable file systems are not changed.

Rather than upgrading, if you have created a Solaris Flash archive, you could install the archive on an inactive boot environment. The new files overwrite the inactive boot environment critical file systems, but shareable file systems are not changed. See Installing Solaris Flash Archives on a Boot Environment.

You can upgrade an inactive boot environment that contains any combination of physical disk slices, Solaris Volume Manager volumes, or Veritas Volume Manager volumes. The slice that is chosen for the root (/) file system must be a single-slice concatenation that is included in a RAID–1 volume (mirror). For procedures about creating a boot environment with mirrored file systems, see To Create a Boot Environment With RAID-1 Volumes (Mirrors) (Command-Line Interface).

Adding and Removing Packages With Solaris Live Upgrade

When upgrading and adding and removing packages or patches, Solaris Live Upgrade requires packages or patches that comply with the SVR4 advanced packaging guidelines. While Sun packages conform to these guidelines, Sun cannot guarantee the conformance of packages from third-party vendors. If a package violates these guidelines, the package can cause the package-addition software to fail or can alter the active boot environment.

For more information on adding and removing packages with Solaris Live Upgrade, see the following:

• For planning information, see Managing Packages and Patches With Solaris Live Upgrade.

• For information on the command and options, see the man page, luupgrade(1M).

• For more information on packaging requirements, see Appendix G, Additional SVR4 Packaging Requirements (Reference).