Chapter 1 Overview of Installing Solaris

Successfully installing Solaris software requires a clear sense of what you are doing and why, especially if you have to install a large number of systems. This chapter provides all the information you need to determine the best way to install the Solaris software at your site, including installing systems over the network and automating the installation process.

• "Maybe You Don't Need to Install"

• "Installing Standalone Systems and Servers"

• "Methods for Installing Solaris Software"

If you want to install a desktop system from a local CD-ROM, you should use the Installation Instructions for Solaris, also known as the Start Here card.

Maybe You Don't Need to Install

If you are managing a large site of desktop systems running Solaris software, you may not need to install Solaris software on every system. Instead, you may want to turn your systems into Solstice^TM AutoClient^TM systems or diskless clients. AutoClient systems and diskless clients do not have the Solaris software installed on their local disks; instead, the Solaris software is provided by an OS server.

AutoClient systems and diskless clients reduce the burden and cost of system administration by eliminating the work you do to configure and maintain your desktop systems, which includes installing the Solaris software. These systems help you centralize your administration. You can use the instructions in this book to install an OS server to provide Solaris software for AutoClient systems and diskless clients.

For more information about using these types of systems, refer to the Solstice AdminSuite Administration Guide.

Installing Standalone Systems and Servers

There are two types of systems on which you must install the Solaris software:

• Server - A system that provides services and/or file systems, such as home directories or mail files, for other systems on the network. An OS server is a server that provides the Solaris software for other systems on the network. For diskless clients, OS servers provide /usr, root (/), and swap file systems. For AutoClient systems, an OS server provides all system software except the individual root (/) and /usr file systems required for local swapping and caching.

• Standalone system - A system that has all of its Solaris software on its local disk and does not require services from an OS server. Both networked and non-networked systems can be standalone systems in the Solaris operating environment.

Methods for Installing Solaris Software

There are four methods for installing Solaris software:

• Interactive (Solaris Interactive Installation program) - The Solaris Interactive Installation program guides you step-by-step in installing the Solaris software. The Solaris Interactive Installation program does not enable you to install all the software (Solaris software and co-packaged software) in your product box at once; it only installs the Solaris software. After you install the Solaris software, you have to install the other co-packaged software by using the co-packaged installation programs.

• Interactive (Solaris Web Start) - Solaris Web Start provides a web browser user interface that enables you to install all the software (Solaris software and co-packaged software) in your product box at once. You can install all the software with a default option, or you can use a customize option to install only the software you want.

• Custom JumpStart (formerly called auto-install) - This method enables you to automatically and identically install groups of systems. It requires up-front work before the systems can be installed, but it's the most cost-effective way to automatically install Solaris software for large enterprise sites. See Chapter 8, Preparing Custom JumpStart Installations for more information.

• JumpStart - This method enables you to automatically install the Solaris software on a new SPARC-based system just by inserting the Solaris CD into the system and powering on the system. The software that gets installed is specified by a default profile that is picked based on the system's model and the size of its disks; you don't have a choice of the software that gets installed.

  All new SPARC-based systems have the JumpStart software (a preinstalled boot image) pre-installed on its boot disk, which is required to use this method on a system. You can install the JumpStart software on existing systems with the re-preinstall command.

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  Note -

  When installing new systems with the custom JumpStart installation method, the preinstalled JumpStart software on the new system enables you to power the system on to start the installation instead of having to specify a boot command.

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Installing Over the Network

Because the Solaris software is distributed on a CD, a system has to have access to a CD-ROM drive to install it. However, if you have a large number of systems that don't have a local CD-ROM drive, or if you don't want to insert the Solaris CD into every system's CD-ROM drive, you can set up the systems to install from a remote Solaris CD image. The remote Solaris CD image must be provided by an install server, which has either the Solaris CD copied to its hard disk or the Solaris CD mounted from its CD-ROM drive.

You can use all of the installation methods when installing a system over the network. However, installing systems over the network with the custom JumpStart method is a good way to centralize and automate the installation process for a large enterprise site.

Requirements for a Totally Automated Installation

To set up your site to install Solaris software on systems over the network with no user intervention, you must:

• Preconfigure network information for the systems, such as the date, time, geographic region, site subnet mask, and language. This eliminates many prompts that are otherwise necessary to identify the systems during an installation. (See Chapter 6, Preconfiguring System Configuration Information.)

• Set up the custom JumpStart files for the systems. (See Chapter 8, Preparing Custom JumpStart Installations.)

• Set up the systems to install over the network. (See Chapter 7, Preparing to Install Solaris Software Over the Network.)