Overview

The custom JumpStart installation method provides a way to automatically and identically install groups of systems. The first step when preparing custom JumpStart installations is deciding how you want the systems at your site to be installed. For example, the following scenario would be ideal to set up and perform custom JumpStart installations:

• You need to install the Solaris software on 100 new systems.

• The engineering group owns 70 out of the 100 new, SPARC based systems, and its systems must be installed as standalone systems with the developer software group.

• The marketing group owns 30 out of the 100 new, x86 based systems, and its systems must be installed as standalone systems with the end user software group.

After you decide how you want the systems at your site to be installed, the most important step when preparing custom JumpStart installations is to create the essential files that are used during a custom JumpStart installation: the rules.ok file (a validated rules file) and a profile for each group of systems. The rules file is a text file that should contain a rule for each group of systems (or single systems) that you want to automatically install. Each rule distinguishes a group of systems based on one or more system attributes, and it links each group to a profile, which is a text file that defines how the Solaris software will be installed on each system in the group. Both the rules file and the profiles must be located in a JumpStart directory.

In the previous scenario, you would create a rules file with two different rules, one rule for the engineering and another rule for the marketing group. For each rule, you could use the system's platform groups to distinguish the groups from one another: the engineering group has SPARC based systems and the marketing group has x86 based systems. Each rule would also contain a link to an appropriate profile. For example, in the rule for the engineering group, you would add a link to the profile, called eng_profile, that you created for the engineering group. And, in the rule for the marketing group, you would add a link to the profile, called market_profile, that you created for the engineering group.

After creating the rules file and profiles, you have to validate them with the check script. If the check script runs successfully, the rules.ok file is created, which is a generated version of the rules file that the Solaris installation program uses to perform custom JumpStart installations.