Solaris Live Upgrade 2.0 Guide

Solaris Live Upgrade Planning

This chapter provides guidelines and requirements for review before installing and using Solaris Live Upgrade. You also should review general information on upgrading in “Checklist for Upgrading” in Solaris 8 Advanced Installation Guide. This chapter contains the following sections:

Solaris Live Upgrade System Requirements

From a SPARC based system, you can upgrade from the Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, or Solaris 8 operating environment to a Solaris 8 Update operating environment.
From an IA based system, you can upgrade from the Solaris 7 or 8 operating environment to a Solaris 8 Update operating environment.
You cannot upgrade to the Solaris 7 operating environment.
You must upgrade to the same release that contained the Solaris Live Upgrade software. For example, if on your current operating environment you installed Solaris Live Upgrade from the Solaris 8 10/01 release, you must upgrade to the Solaris 8 10/01 release.

Solaris Live Upgrade is included in the Solaris 8 software, but if you want to upgrade from previous releases, you need to install the Solaris Live Upgrade packages on your current operating environment. You can install the Solaris Live Upgrade packages from the installer on the Solaris 8 Software 2 of 2 CD.

For instructions on installing the packages, see To Install Solaris Live Upgrade.

Disk Space Requirements

Typically, each boot environment requires a minimum of 350 to 800 Mbytes of disk space, depending on your system software configuration. Utilities that are used by the Solaris Live Upgrade user interface determine your resource requirements.

To estimate the file system size that is needed to create a boot environment, start the creation of a new boot environment. The size is calculated and you can then abort the process.

You can create a boot environment only on a disk that can serve as a boot device. Some systems restrict which disks can serve as a boot device. Refer to your system's documentation to determine if any boot restrictions apply.

Required Packages

Check your current operating environment for the packages in the following table, which are required to use Solaris Live Upgrade. If packages in the column for your release are missing, use the pkgadd command to add these.

Table 2–1 Required Packages


Solaris 2.6 Release	Solaris 7 Release	Solaris 8 Release
SUNWadmap	SUNWadmap	SUNWadmap
SUNWadmfw	SUNWadmap	SUNWadmap
SUNWadmc	SUNWadmc	SUNWadmc
SUNWmfrun	SUNWadmc	SUNWadmc
SUNWmfrun	SUNWlibC	SUNWlibC
SUNWloc		SUNWbzip

To Check For Packages on Your System

Type the following to list the packages on your system.
% pkginfo

Checking System Patch Levels

Solaris Live Upgrade software is designed to be installed and run on multiple versions of the Solaris operating environment. Correct operation of Solaris Live Upgrade requires the latest recommended and security patches for a given OS version. Consult http://sunsolve.sun.com for the correct revision level for a patch cluster.

Guidelines for Selecting Slices for File Systems

There are some file system limitations, which are listed below.

When creating file systems for a boot environment, the rules are identical to the rules for creating file systems for the Solaris operating environment. Solaris Live Upgrade cannot prevent you from creating invalid configurations for critical file systems. For example, you could enter a lucreate command that would create separate file systems for root (/) and /kernel—an invalid division of root (/).

Guidelines for Selecting a Slice for the `root` (/) File System

When you create an inactive boot environment, you need to identify a slice where the root (/) file system is to be copied. Use the following guidelines when you select a slice for the root (/) file system. The slice must comply with the following:

Must be a slice from which the system can boot.
Must meet the recommended minimum size.
Cannot be a Veritas VxVM volume or a Solstice DiskSuite^TM metadevice.
Can be on different physical disks or the same disk as the active root file system.
If you have a sun4c and sun4m system (not a sun4u UltraSPARC^TM system), the root (/) file system cannot be greater than 2 Gbytes.

The Choices menu displays most free slices that are available for the creation of an inactive boot environment. Some slices are free, but not available to be shown in the Choices menu, such as a Veritas VxVM volume or a Solstice DiskSuite metadevice.

Guidelines for Selecting a Slice for a `/swap` File System

The swap slice cannot be in use by any boot environment except the current boot environment or if the -s option is used, the source boot environment. The boot environment creation fails if the swap slice is being used by any other boot environment whether the slice contains a swap, ufs, or any other file system.

Using Live Upgrade From a Remote System

When viewing the character interface remotely, such as over a tip line, you might need to set the TERM environment variable to VT220. Also, when using the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) , set the value of the TERM variable to dtterm, rather than xterm.

Upgrades of Root Mirrors and Metadevices

If you are using Solaris Live Upgrade on a system that has a Solstice DiskSuite metadevice or Veritas volume, the source boot environment can be a metadevice or volume, but the target boot environment cannot be a metadevice or volume. The inactive boot environment must be a regular slice.

Note –

If you have problems upgrading with Veritas VxVM, see System Panics When Upgrading On Veritas VxVm.