Installation Enhancements

The following installation enhancements are new in the Solaris 10 1/06 release. To view installation features that are new in the previous Solaris 10 3/05 release, see Installation Enhancements.

Upgrade Support Changes for Solaris Releases

Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release, you can upgrade the Solaris OS from the Solaris 8, 9, or 10 release. Upgrades from the Solaris 7 release are not supported. For further information, see the Solaris 10 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations.

Sun Update Connection, System Edition 1.0

This feature is new in the Solaris 10 1/06 release.

The Sun Update Connection services enable you to keep your Solaris system up-to-date by giving you access to all the latest fixes and features. You can choose to perform local single-system update management or remote multiple-system update management. The Sun Update Connection services include these components:

• Sun Update Manager. The Sun^TM Update Manager graphical user interface and the smpatch command-line interface enable you to manage updates locally on your Solaris system. The Sun Update Connection, System Edition software has the same functionality as the Sun Patch Manager tools, with the addition of some new features and enhancements.

• Sun Update Connection. This web application is hosted at Sun and enables you to manage updates remotely on one or more of your Solaris systems.

• Sun Update Connection proxy. This local caching proxy serves updates from Sun to the proxy's client systems inside your enterprise security domain.

• SunSolve Patch & Updates Portal. This portal gives you manual access to patches for download and to patch README files.

To receive the Sun Update Connection services, you must register your system. The registration process is initiated the first time that you boot your system or the first time that you access the Update Manager.

A subset of the Sun Update Connection services is available to Solaris users who do not have a service plan. These services include the use of Sun Update Manager to manage all security fixes and device driver updates that apply to your Solaris system.

To use the full suite of Sun Update Connection services, you must have one of the service plans described at http://www.sun.com/service/solaris10/. The full suite of services includes access to all patches, the Sun Update Connection web application, and the Sun Update Connection proxy.

For information about the Sun Update Connection, System Edition, see these books in the http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/1320.2/ on docs.sun.com^SM.

• Sun Update Manager 1.0 Administration Guide

• Sun Update Connection 1.0 Administration Guide

• Sun Update Connection, System Edition 1.0 Release Notes

For information about registering your system after you install the Solaris software, see the Sun Connection Information Hub http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hubs/connection/.

x86: GRUB Based Booting

Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release, the open source GNU GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) has been adopted in the Solaris OS for x86 based systems. GRUB is responsible for loading a boot archive into the system's memory. A boot archive is a collection of critical files that is needed during system startup before the root (/) file system is mounted. The boot archive is used to boot the Solaris OS.

The most notable change is the replacement of the Solaris Device Configuration Assistant with the GRUB menu. The GRUB menu facilitates booting the different operating systems that are installed on your system. The GRUB menu is displayed when you boot an x86 based system. From the GRUB menu, you can select an OS instance to install by using the arrow keys. If you do not make a selection, the default OS instance is booted.

The GRUB based boot feature provides the following improvements:

• Faster boot times

• Installation from USB CD or DVD drives

• Ability to boot from USB storage devices

• Simplified DHCP setup for PXE boot (no vendor-specific options)

• Elimination of all realmode drivers

• Ability to use Solaris Live Upgrade and the GRUB menu to quickly activate and fall back to boot environments

For more information about GRUB refer to the following sections.

GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not UNIX.” For more information, go to http://www.gnu.org.

Upgrading the Solaris OS When Non-Global Zones Are Installed

This feature is available in the Solaris 10 1/06 release.

The Solaris Zones feature provides the ability to configure non-global zones in a single instance of Solaris, the global zone. A non-global zone is an application execution environment in which processes are isolated from all other zones. If you are running a system with non-global zones installed, you can use standard Solaris upgrade programs to upgrade to the Solaris 1/06 release. You can use either the Solaris interactive installation program or custom JumpStart to upgrade. The process of upgrading with non-global zones installed has some limitations.

• A limited number of custom JumpStart keywords is supported.

• You must use the Solaris Operating System DVD or a DVD-created network installation image. You cannot use the Solaris Software CD media or a CD network installation image to upgrade a system.

• On a system with non-global zones installed, do not use Solaris Live Upgrade to upgrade your system. While you can create a boot environment with the lucreate command, the luupgrade command cannot upgrade a boot environment that has non-global zones installed. In that case, the upgrade fails and an error message is displayed.

• For a list of supported custom JumpStart keywords, see the Solaris 10 Installation Guide: Custom JumpStart and Advanced Installations.

• For details about using the Solaris interactive installation program, see the Solaris 10 Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning.