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". This chapter contains the following sections:
You can upgrade from the Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7, or Solaris 8 operating environment to the Solaris 8 or Solaris 9 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 that you installed on the currently running system. For example, if on your current operating environment, you installed Solaris Live Upgrade from the Solaris 9 release, you must upgrade to the Solaris 9 release.
Solaris Live Upgrade is included in the Solaris 9 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 following:
An installer on the Solaris 9 DVD, the Solaris 9 Software 2 of 2 CD, or a net installation image.
The pkgadd command. If you are using the pkgadd command, the packages are SUNWlur and SUNWluu, and these packages should be installed in that order.
For instructions on installing the Solaris Live Upgrade software, see "To Install Solaris Live Upgrade".
Follow general disk space requirements for an upgrade. See Chapter 5, Guidelines for Allocating Disk Space (Planning).
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. You can then abort the process.
The disk on the new boot environment must be able to 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.
The following sections list packages required by Solaris Live Upgrade and provides information on recommended patches. See "Managing Packages and Patches With Solaris Live Upgrade" for information on using Solaris Live Upgrade to add packages and patches.
When upgrading and adding and removing packages or patches, Solaris Live Upgrade requires packages or patches that comply with the SVR4 Advanced Packaging Guidelines. While Sun packages conform to these guidelines, Sun cannot guarantee the conformance of packages from third-party vendors. A nonconformant package can cause the package-addition software during an upgrade to fail or worse, alter the active boot environment.
For more information on adding and removing packages with Solaris Live Upgrade, see the man page, luupgrade(1M). For more information on packaging requirements, see Appendix C, Additional SvR4 Packaging Requirements (Reference).
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 them.
Table 31-1 Required Packages for Solaris Live Upgrade
Solaris 2.6 Release |
Solaris 7 Release |
Solaris 8 Release |
---|---|---|
SUNWadmap |
SUNWadmap |
SUNWadmap |
SUNWadmfw |
SUNWadmc |
SUNWadmc |
SUNWadmc |
SUNWlibC |
SUNWlibC |
SUNWmfrun |
|
SUNWbzip |
SUNWloc | ||
SUNWlibC |
|
|
Type the following to list the packages on your system.
% pkginfo [[package_name]] |
package_name |
List the packages that you want to check |
Solaris Live Upgrade software is designed to be installed and to be run on multiple versions of the Solaris operating environment. Correct operation of Solaris Live Upgrade requires the latest recommended patches and security patches for a given OS version. Consult http://sunsolve.sun.com for the correct revision level for a patch cluster for the release of Solaris that you are running.
The lucreate command that is used with the -m option specifies which file systems and the number of file systems to be created in the new boot environment. You must specify the exact number of file systems you want to create by repeating this option. For example, a single use of the -m option specifies where to put all the file systems. You merge all the file systems from the original boot environment into the one file system specified by the -m option. If you specify the -m option twice, you create two file systems. When using the -m option to create file systems, follow these guidelines:
You must specify one -m option for the root (/) file system for the new boot environment. If you run lucreate without the -m option, the Configuration menu is displayed. The Configuration menu enables you to customize the new boot environment by redirecting files onto new mount points.
Any critical file systems that exist in the current boot environment and that are not specified in a -m option are merged into the next highest-level file system created.
Only the file systems that are specified by the -m option are created on the new boot environment. If your current boot environment contains multiple file systems, and you want to have the same number of file systems in the new boot environment created, you must specify one -m option for each file system to be created. For example, if you have file systems for root (/), /opt, and /var, you would use one -m option for each file system on the new boot environment.
Do not duplicate a mount point. For example, you cannot have two root (/) file systems.
When you create 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 type a lucreate command that would create separate file systems for root (/) and /kernel-an invalid division of root (/).
Do not overlap slices when re-slicing disks. If this condition exists, the new boot environment appears to have been created, but when activated, the boot environment does not boot. The overlapping file systems might be corrupted.
For Solaris Live Upgrade to work properly, the vfstab file on the active boot environment must have valid contents and must have an entry for root (/) at the minimum.
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.
Can be on different physical disks or the same disk as the active root (/) file system.
If you have a sun4m 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 Solaris Volume Manager metadevice.
You can use Solaris Live Upgrade on a system that is currently using either Solaris Volume Manager metadevices or Veritas Volume Manager VxVM volumes. The source boot environment can be contained on any combination of physical disk slices, Solaris Volume Manager metadevices, or Veritas Volume Manager volumes. When creating a new boot environment, the slice that is chosen for the root (/) file system for the new boot environment can be either a physical disk slice or a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice. If you choose a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice for the root file system, the metadevice must be either a stripe with only a single disk or a mirror on a single-disk stripe. See metaroot(1M) for more details.
You cannot use a Veritas VxFS volume for the root (/) file system when creating a new boot environment. For any file system except the root (/) file system, you can use either a physical disk slice, a Solaris Volume Manager metadevice, or a Veritas VXFS volume.
Table 31-2 describes the acceptable disk configurations for creating a boot environment when using metadevices or volumes.
Table 31-2 Acceptable Slices for Metadevices or Volumes
Product |
Source Slice |
If Target Is a Metadevice for a root (/) File System |
If Target Is Not a root (/) File System, But Is for /usr, /var, or /opt |
---|---|---|---|
Solaris Volume Manger |
For the root (/) file system, the source can be a metadevice or physical slice. |
The root (/) file system, must be either a stripe with only a single disk or a mirror on a single-disk stripe. |
Other file systems can be either a physical slice or metadevice. |
Veritas VxVM Volume Manager |
For the root (/) file system, the source can be a volume or physical slice. |
The root (/) file system, cannot be a VxVM volume; root (/) must be a physical slice. |
Other file systems can be either a physical slice or volume. |
When creating a new boot environment, the lucreate -m command recognizes the following three types of devices only:
A physical slice in the form of /dev/dsk/cnumtnumdnumsnum
A Solaris Volume Manager metadevice in the form of /dev/md/dsk/dnum
A Veritas VxFS volume in the form of /dev/vx/dsk/volume_name
Using boot environments with metadevices or volumes has special considerations when upgrading or installing a flash archive. See "Upgrading Metadevices and Volumes" for details.
If you have problems upgrading with Veritas VxVM, see "System Panics When Upgrading With Solaris Live Upgrade Running Veritas VxVm".
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.
Solaris Live Upgrade copies the entire contents of a slice to the designated new boot environment slice. You might want some large file systems on that slice to be shared between boot environments rather than copied to conserve space and copying time. File systems that are critical to the operating environment such as root (/) and /var must be copied. File systems such as /home are not critical file systems and could be shared between boot environments. Shareable file systems must be user-defined file systems and on separate swap slices on both the active and new boot environments. You can reconfigure the disk several ways, depending your needs.
You can reslice the disk before creating the new boot environment and put the shareable file system on its own slice. For example, if root (/), /var, and /home are on the same slice, reconfigure the disk and put /home on its own slice. When you create any new boot environments, /home is shared with the new boot environment by default.
If you want to share a directory, the directory must be split off to its own slice. The directory is then a file system that can be shared with another boot environment. You can use the lucreate command with the -m option to create a new boot environment and split a directory off to its own slice. But, the new file system cannot yet be shared with the original boot environment. You need to run the lucreate command with the -m option again to create another boot environment. The two new boot environments can then share the directory.
For example, if you wanted to upgrade from the Solaris 8 release to the Solaris 9 release and share /home, you could run the lucreate command with the -m option. You could create a Solaris 8 release with /home as a separate file system on its own slice. Then run the lucreate command with the -m option again to duplicate that boot environment. This third boot environment can then be upgraded to the Solaris 9 release. /home is shared between the Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 releases.
For a description of shareable and critical file systems, see "Creating a Boot Environment Overview".
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.