Flash Archive Keywords
Flash Archive keywords are like JumpStart keywords. They define elements of the installation.
Each keyword is a command that controls one aspect of how the Flash
Archive software installs the software on a clone system.
Use the following guidelines to format keywords and values:
-
Keywords and values are separated by a single equal sign with only one pair per line
-
Keywords are case insensitive
-
Individual lines can be any length
General Keywords
Each Flash Archive section is defined by the section_begin and section_end keywords.
For example, the archive files section includes
a section_begin keyword, though with a different value. User-defined archive sections are
delimited by section_begin and section_end keywords, with values
appropriate to each section. The values for the section_begin and section_end keywords are
described in the following table.
Table 6-2 Values for section_begin and section_end Keywords
|
|
Archive cookie |
cookie
– This section is not delimited by the section-begin and section-end keywords. |
Archive
identification |
identification |
User-defined sections |
section-name – An example of a section-name keyword is X-user_section_1. |
Archive files |
archive |
|
Keywords for the Archive Identification Section
The following tables describe the keywords for use in the archive identification section
and the values you can define for them. The required general keywords are
described in Table 6-2.
The following keywords, used in the archive-identification section, describe the contents of the
archive files section.
Table 6-3 Archive Identification Section Keywords: Contents of Archive Files Section
|
|
|
|
archive_id |
This keyword uniquely describes the contents of
the archive. This value is used by the installation software only to validate
the contents of the archive during archive installation. If the keyword is
not present, no integrity check is performed. For example, the archive_id keyword might
be FlAsH-ARcHive-2.0. |
Text |
No |
files_archived_method |
This keyword describes the archive method that is used in
the files section.
If this keyword is not present, the files section is assumed to be in cpio format with ASCII headers. This format is the cpio -c option.
If this keyword is present, it has one of the following values:
cpio – The archive format in the files section is cpio with ASCII headers.
pax – The archive format in the files section is pax with extended tar interchange format. The pax utility enables archiving and extracting files that are greater than 4 GB.
If the files_compressed_method is present, the compression method is applied
to the archive file that is created by the archive method. |
Text |
No |
files_archived_size |
This
keyword value is the size of the archived files section in bytes. |
Numeric |
|
files_compress_method |
This
keyword describes the compression algorithm that is used on the files section.
If the keyword is present, it can have one of the following values:
If this keyword is not present, the archive files section is assumed to be uncompressed.
The
compression method that is indicated by this keyword is applied to the
archive file created by the archive method indicated by the files_archived_method keyword.
|
Text |
No |
files_unarchived_size |
This keyword defines the cumulative size in bytes of the extracted
archive. The value is used for file-system size verification. |
Numeric |
No |
|
The following keywords provide descriptive information about the entire archive. These keywords are
generally used to assist you in archive selection and to aid in archive
management. These keywords are all optional and are used to
help you to distinguish between individual archives. You use options for the flarcreate
command to include these keywords. For details, see Example 3-9.
Table 6-4 Archive Identification Section Keywords: User Describes the Archive
|
|
|
|
creation_date |
This keyword value is
a textual timestamp that represents the time that you created the archive.
You can use the flarcreate command with the -i option to create the date.
If you do not specify a creation date with the flarcreate command, the default date is set in Greenwich mean time (GMT).
The value must be in ISO-8601 complete basic calendar format without the time designator (ISO-8601,§5.4.1(a)). The format is CCYYMMDDhhmmss. For example, 20100131221409 represents January 31, 2010, 10:14:09 p.m.
|
Text |
No |
creation_master |
This keyword
value is the name of the master system you used to create the
archive. You can use the flarcreate -m option to create this value. If
you do not specify a value, the value is taken from the uname -n
command. |
Text |
No |
content_name |
This keyword identifies the archive. The value is generated from the
flarcreate -n option. Follow these guidelines when you create this value:
|
Text |
Yes |
content_type |
This keyword value
specifies a category for the archive. You use the flarcreate -T
option to generate the value. |
Text |
No |
content_description |
The keyword value describes the contents of the
archive. The value of this keyword has no length limit. You use
the flarcreate -E option to create this value. |
Text |
No |
content_author |
This keyword value identifies the
creator of the archive. You use the flarcreate-a option to create this
value. Suggested values include the full name of the creator and the creator's
email address. |
Text |
No |
content_architectures |
This keyword value is a comma-separated list of the kernel architectures that
the archive supports.
If the keyword is present, the installation software validates the kernel architecture of the clone system against the list of architectures that the archive supports. The installation fails if the archive does not support the kernel architecture of the clone system.
If the keyword is not present, the installation software does not validate the architecture of the clone system.
|
Text list |
No |
|
The following keywords also describe the entire archive. By default, the values are
filled in by uname when the flash archive is created. If you create
a flash archive in which the root directory is
not /, the archive software inserts the string UNKNOWN for the
keywords. The exceptions are the creation_node, creation_release, and creation_os_name keywords.
-
For creation_node, the software uses the contents of the nodename file.
-
For creation_release and creation_os_name, the software attempts to use the contents of root directory /var/sadm/system/admin/INST_RELEASE. If the software is unsuccessful in reading this file, it assigns the value UNKNOWN.
Regardless of their sources, you cannot override the values of these keywords.
Table 6-5 Archive Identification Section Keywords: Software Describes the Archive
|
|
creation_node |
uname -n |
creation_hardware_class |
uname -m |
creation_platform |
uname -i |
creation_processor |
uname -p |
creation_release |
uname -r |
creation_os_name |
uname -s |
creation_os_version |
uname -v |
|
User-Defined Section Keywords
In addition to the keywords that are defined by the flash archive, you
can define other keywords. The flash archive ignores user-defined keywords, but you can
provide scripts or programs that process the archive identification section and use user-defined
keywords. Use the following format when creating user-defined keywords:
-
Begin the keyword name with an X.
-
Create the keyword with any characters other than linefeeds, equal signs, and null characters.
-
Suggested naming conventions for user-defined keywords include the underscore-delimited descriptive method used for the predefined keywords. Another convention is a federated convention similar to the naming of Java packages.
For example, X-department is a valid name for a user-defined keyword.
For an example of using options to include user-defined keywords in the archive
identification section, see Example 3-9.