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Solaris Transition Guide

Chapter 3 Converting a SunOS 4.x System to the Solaris 7 Environment

Converting a SunOS 4.x system to the Solaris 7 environment is a three-phase process that includes pre-installation (backing up data), installing the Solaris environment, and post-installation (restoring data).

This chapter provides information about the pre-installation and post-installation phases for a single system or an entire network. See Chapter 10, Setting Up a Solaris 7 Server to Support SunOS Release 4.x Diskless Clients, for information about creating an environment that serves both Solaris 7 and SunOS release 4.x clients.

What's New About Installing

The Solaris 7 environment introduces a number of changes in the way you install software on systems, which makes it different than installing the SunOS 4.x software. These include:

What to Do Before You Install Solaris Software

Converting a SunOS 4.x system to the Solaris 7 software involves more than just running the Solaris installation program and loading the software. Usually, there is data on the SunOS 4.x system that needs to be transferred to a Solaris 7 system. This data may be full file systems, such as /home, or locally customized system files, such as /etc/hosts or /etc/passwd.

No matter how you plan to handle the data transfer, you should back up all disk partitions by doing full dumps before you begin the installation process. Because the device naming conventions are different in the Solaris 7 operating environment, you might inadvertently choose the wrong disk when you install the Solaris 7 software. Backing up the file systems before you begin the installation procedure offers some protection should this occur. For information about device naming conventions, see "Device Naming Conventions".

Note about file system formats:

Saving Disk Partition Information

Before you begin the installation process, you should save a hard copy of the system's existing disk partitions. It can serve as a reference for many decisions that are made about configuring the Solaris 7 system. The following procedure is one way to obtain the disk partition information.

  1. Obtain the names of the disks attached to the system.

    To obtain the names of the disks attached to the system, use the format(8) command.

  2. Save the disk partition information.

    To obtain the partition information encoded on each disk, use the dkinfo(8) command. You can pipe the output to a printer or to a file that you can save to another system.

    Note -

    Using the previous command provides you with information only on the configured partitions. All nonconfigured partitions are displayed with the message: "No such device or address."

Saving File System Information

The mappings between file system names (for example, /usr, /home) and device names (for example, /dev/sd0g) reside in the configuration file /etc/fstab. Before proceeding, you should make a printed copy of the /etc/fstab file to help you construct the Solaris 7 file.

Saving Metadevice Configuration Information

Use this section only if you are upgrading a system running the SPARCserver(TM) Manager or Solstice DiskSuite unbundled products. (These products are used to mirror, concatenate, or stripe multiple disks.)

To upgrade your system without this product, you have to modify your multiple-partition configurations to use single partitions. In particular, a concatenated or striped file system must be reorganized onto a single disk, and partitions and mirrors can no longer be used.

If the system is running SPARCserver Manager or Solstice DiskSuite utilities, you should save the metadevice configuration information before installing Solaris 7 software. This enables you to recover the state of the metadevices when you install Solaris 7 software, and serves as a reference as you construct the list of disks attached to your system.

  1. Use the metastat(8) command to save information, as in the following example. 


    # /etc/metastat -p | lpr

  2. Save the output of the metadb(8) command.

    For example.


    # /etc/metadb -i | lpr

    The output of metadb tells you the state database configuration information. This information is necessary to reconstruct the state databases if you reinstall the Solstice DiskSuite product.

Determining What To Back Up

You should create a list of the SunOS 4.x files and file systems that you want to back up and restore after installing Solaris 7 software.

Making a List of System Components to Back Up

Make a list of all the system components in the existing SunOS release 4.x environment and decide which are critical to the user's system. Consider:

Making a List of Files and File Systems to Back Up

Use the following guidelines to make the list of file systems to save:

Making a List of SunOS System Configuration Files to Back Up

There are a number of SunOS 4.x system configuration files that can be merged or converted for the Solaris platform. Use the example list that follows to help select the system configuration files you want to back up.

Note -

The list contains suggestions. You should study the items carefully and add to or delete from the list depending on the configuration at your site. For example, if you have special files in directories from third-party software vendors, you may need to save them.

If the system is an NIS master server, you should save all the files that reside in the NIS master directory (for example, /etc). Additionally, save any other master files that you added to NIS. The suggestions for files to back up include:

Determining Disk Space Requirements

Make a list of how much disk space each file system that you want to move to the Solaris 7 upgrade, uses. Refer to this list when installing the Solaris 7 software, since you can partition disk space for your SunOS 4.x file systems when running the Solaris 7 installation program.

Deciding the Order of Installation for Networks

If you are converting a network of SunOS 4.x systems to the Solaris 7 software, decide the order of the systems to convert to maximize convenience for the users. For example, you might want to convert all client systems before you convert any servers. The first system you convert should be a standalone system with a locally attached CD-ROM drive.

For a while, you will probably manage a network consisting of both SunOS 4.x and Solaris 7 systems, and part of your planning should involve determining priorities. For example, you may want to convert one domain and use it for system administration testing and for porting internally developed applications before you convert the entire network environment.

Backing Up Files and File Systems Before You Install

Once you decide which files or file systems you need to back up from the SunOS 4.x system, you can use the standard commands and procedures given in the SunOS 4.x documentation to do backups. The command you use depends on whether the tape drive is local or remote. No matter how you plan to handle the data transfer, it is still a good idea to back up all disk partitions by doing full dumps before you begin the installation process.

Installing Solaris Software

Install the Solaris 7 software on the server or standalone system using the software installation procedures given in Solaris 7 (SPARC Platform Edition) Installation Library or Solaris 7 (Intel Platform Edition) Installation Library. These are also known as the Start Here cards.

Preserve Option

The Solaris 7 Interactive Installation program has a preserve screen that enables you to preserve existing file systems during installation. This is a good way to preserve any SunOS 4.x file systems so you don't have to restore them.

If you cannot preserve a SunOS 4.x file system or you choose not to (because you want to change how the system's disks are partitioned), you should create new file systems with sufficient disk space for the SunOS 4.x file system that you want to restore (using the disk space requirements you recorded earlier). Then you can restore the SunOS 4.x file systems into the new file systems after Solaris is installed.

Restoring Files and File Systems After You Install

This section describes issues related to restoring SunOS 4.x files and file systems you backed up before installing the Solaris 7 software.

Restoring SunOS 4.x File Systems and User Files

You can restore the SunOS 4.x file systems that you could not or chose not to preserve into the new file systems you created during the Solaris 7 installation. For information about backup and restore procedures, see System Administration Guide, Volume I.

Note -

Before proceeding make sure that the target slice is large enough to accommodate the file system being restored.

Restore any SunOS 4.x user files that you backed up, and copy them to the new system.

Restoring SunOS 4.x System Configuration Files

First, you must restore the SunOS 4.x system configuration files to a temporary directory on the Solaris 7 system. After the information is back on the system in the temporary directory, you need to make it available in the Solaris 7 operating environment. Some of the data can just be merged into the files, while some types of data must be converted to new formats.

The system's configuration defines which files you need to work with. Complete the restore by merging or converting files as follows:

Files to Merge

To make data from any of the following files available, merge the changes into the Solaris 7 version of the same file. Note, however, that not all of these files were modified on the SunOS 4.x system. Identify files that were changed on the SunOS 4.x system and merge these only. As you read the list, note that some of the file names are slightly different. For example, /etc/auto.* files are now /etc/auto_*.

The following is an example list of the SunOS release 4.x files backed up using the instructions in the first part of this chapter. These files are candidates for merging into the Solaris 7 operating environment. See Appendix D, System Files Reference Table, to examine SunOS release 4.x files for changes.

Files to Convert

Many system files, such as the /etc/fstab file, have been replaced and do not exist under the Solaris 7 operating environment. Information from these files must be extracted and manually converted in the Solaris 7 environment. See Appendix D, System Files Reference Table, to examine SunOS release 4.x files for changes.

Caution - Caution -

Do not restore operating system executable files (such as system commands in /usr/bin) from the SunOS release 4.x system to your system after installing the Solaris 7 software.

You must change the following files before merging the data onto the Solaris 7 system: 

share -F fstype -o options -d "text" pathname resource

See the dfstab(4) man page for additional information.

dev raw_dev mnt_pt fs_type
fsck_pass auto_mnt mnt_option

Refer to the vfstab(4) man page for additional information.