General Information

This section provides general information such as behavior changes in the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release.

Oracle Solaris Auto Registration

Oracle Solaris Auto Registration is new in the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release.

What Is Auto Registration?

A new Auto Registration screen has been added to the interactive installer to facilitate registering your system using your Oracle support credentials. Oracle Solaris JumpStart installations and network installations require a new auto_reg keyword in the sysidcfg file to control settings during the installation.

With Auto Registration, during the initial reboot after you install or upgrade your system, configuration data about your system is automatically communicated through the existing service tag technology to the Oracle Product Registration System. The service tag data about your system is used, for example, to help Oracle enhance customer support and services. You can learn about service tags at http://wikis.sun.com/display/ServiceTag/Sun+Service+Tag+FAQ.

By registering with your support credentials using one of the registration options, you can inventory your systems and the major software components installed on them. For instructions on tracking your registered products, see https://inventory.sun.com/inventory. See also, http://wikis.sun.com/display/SunInventory/Sun+Inventory.

You can choose to send your configuration data to the Oracle Product Registration System anonymously. An anonymous registration means that the configuration data sent to Oracle has no link to the name of a customer. You can also choose to disable Auto Registration.

How to Enable or Modify Auto Registration

Auto Registration is enabled by default. Auto Registration uses support credentials and proxy information that you provide before, during, or after an installation or upgrade of an SPARC or x86 based system.

Before or During an Installation or Upgrade

• You can add the new auto_reg keyword to your sysidcfg file prior to a hands-off installation or upgrade, such as network installations or Oracle Solaris JumpStart installations.

• During an interactive installation or upgrade, the installer asks you to provide your support credentials, or to register anonymously.

• You can use a new Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade command option to provide your support credentials and proxy information, or to register anonymously, during a Live Upgrade.

After an Installation or Upgrade

After an installation or upgrade, a privileged system administrator can use the regadm command to administer Auto Registration and to manage a service tag inventory.

How to Disable Auto Registration

You have the following options for disabling Auto Registration on a SPARC based system or x86 based system, thus preventing data transmission to the Oracle Product Registration System.

For Hands-Off Installation

If you are performing a hands-off installation or upgrade, for example, if you are using the Oracle Solaris JumpStart program, you can disable Auto Registration prior to the installation or upgrade as follows:

1. Before you begin the installation or upgrade, edit the sysidcfg file to add the auto_reg keyword to the file.

   auto_reg=disable

2. Proceed with the installation or upgrade.

3. (Optional) After the installation has completed and the system reboots, verify that the Auto Registration feature is disabled.

   # regadm status
   Solaris Auto-Registration is currently disabled

For Hands-On Installation

1. Begin an interactive installation or upgrade.

2. During the interactive installation or upgrade, the installer prompts you to select an automatic reboot. Do not select the option to automatically reboot after the installation or upgrade. You need to disable Auto Registration prior to rebooting the system.

3. After the installation is complete but before rebooting the system, open a terminal window as follows:

   • For a GUI installation, right-click to open a terminal window.

   • For a text installation, press the exclamation point (!) to open a terminal window.

4. At the command line, remove the /a/var/tmp/autoreg_config file.

5. Reboot the system.

   # reboot

For Oracle Solaris Live Upgrades

1. Prior to performing an Oracle Solaris Live Upgrade, open a text editor and create a file that contains the following Auto Registration information:

   autoreg=disable

2. Save this file.

3. Point to this file when you run the luupgrade command.

   luupgrade -k /path/filename

Further Information

For further information about Auto Registration, see the following resources:

Table 1-1 Auto Registration Documentation

Disaster Recovery Image

Starting with the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release, the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Installation Guide: Solaris Flash Archives (Creation and Installation) now includes instructions about how to create a Flash Archive recovery image that can be used to restore a system to “factory fresh” condition. See Chapter 5, Creating and Using a Disaster Recovery Image, in Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 Installation Guide: Solaris Flash Archives (Creation and Installation). This chapter provides the simplest instructions to create a Flash Archive (FLAR) image that can be loaded onto the target system to recover from a failed disk drive.

BIOS and Firmware Upgrade

The Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release is tested on all supported Oracle systems running the latest combinations of the following:

• BIOS and ILOM

• SPARC firmware, OBP, and Hypervisor

For best results using the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release, upgrade your BIOS/firmware to the latest release listed in the matrix at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/patches/firmware/release_history.jsp.

New Memory Requirements

The following are the minimum and recommended memory requirements for the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release.

Memory Requirements for SPARC Based Systems

• For UFS root file systems:

  • Minimum: 384 Mbytes of memory

  • Recommended: 512 Mbytes of memory

• For ZFS root file systems:

  • Minimum: 768 Mbytes of memory

  • Recommended: 1 Gbyte of memory for overall ZFS performance

Memory Requirements for x86 Based Systems

• For UFS and ZFS root file systems:

  • Minimum: 768 Mbytes of memory

  • Recommended: 1 Gbyte of memory

Changes in Upgrade Support for Oracle Solaris Releases

SPARC: Starting with the Solaris 10 8/07 release, you can upgrade the Oracle Solaris OS on SPARC based systems from the following releases only:

• Solaris 8 OS

• Solaris 9 OS

• Oracle Solaris 10 OS

x86: You can upgrade the Oracle Solaris OS on x86 based systems from the following releases only:

• Solaris 9 OS

• Oracle Solaris 10 OS

To upgrade to the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release from a release earlier than the Solaris 8 OS, first upgrade to any of the releases in the preceding list. Then, upgrade to the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release.

Support for Products Not Part of the Oracle Solaris OS

The Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release has been tested for compatibility with previous releases in line with Oracle Solaris's compatibility guarantee. This means that applications, including third party applications, which adhere to Oracle Solaris's published ABI will work without modification on the Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 release. For more information, see the Oracle Solaris Application Guarantee Program at http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/guarantee.jsp.

Your system might run both an Oracle Solaris OS and other products that are not part of the Oracle Solaris software. These products might be supplied by either Oracle or another company. If you upgrade this system to the Oracle Solaris 10 release, make sure that these other products are also supported on the Oracle Solaris 10 OS. Depending on the status of each of these products, you can perform one of the following options:

• Verify that the existing version of the product is supported on the Oracle Solaris 10 software.

• Install a new version of the product that is supported on the Oracle Solaris 10 release. You might need to remove the previous version of the product prior to upgrading to the Oracle Solaris software. See the product documentation for more details.

• Remove the product prior to upgrading to the Oracle Solaris 10 software.