Solaris Flash Archives

The Solaris Flash installation feature enables you to use a single reference installation of the Solaris operating environment on a system, which is called the master system. Then, you can replicate that installation on a number of systems, which are called clone systems. The installation is an initial installation that overwrites all files on the clone system.

In the Solaris 9 4/03 Update release, the Solaris Flash installation feature provides new enhancements for differential archives and configuration scripts.

• A Solaris Flash installation can now update a clone system with minor changes. If you have a clone system and want to update it with minor changes, you can create a differential archive that contains only the differences between two images, the original master image and an updated master image. When you update a clone system with a differential archive, only the files that are specified in the differential archive are changed. The installation is restricted to clone systems that contain software which is consistent with the original master image. You use the custom JumpStart^TM installation method to install a differential archive on a clone system. Or, you can use Solaris Live Upgrade to install a differential archive on a duplicate boot environment.

• Special scripts can now be run for configuration of the master or clone or can be run to validate the archive. These scripts enable you to do the following:

  • Configure applications on clone systems. You can use a custom JumpStart script for some uncomplicated configurations. For more complicated configurations, special configuration file processing might be necessary on the master system or before or after installation on the clone system. Also, local preinstallation and postinstallation scripts can reside on the clone and protect local customizations from being overwritten by the Solaris Flash software.

  • Identify nonclonable, host-dependent data that enables you to make the flash archive host independent. Host independence is enabled by modifying such data or excluding it from the archive. An example of host-dependent data is a log file.

  • Validate software integrity in the archive during creation.

  • Validate the installation on the clone system.

For further information, see the Solaris 9 Installation Guide. This guide also includes information on how to use Solaris Live Upgrade to install a differential archive.

In the Solaris 9 12/02 Update release, you can customize contents in a Solaris Flash Archive. The flarcreate command is used to create a Solaris Flash archive. This command has been updated with new options that increase your flexibility to define archive contents when creating an archive. You now can exclude more than one file or directory. From an excluded directory, you can add back a subdirectory or file. This feature is useful when you want to exclude large data files that you do not want cloned.

For information on how to use these options, see the Solaris 9 Installation Guide.

In the Solaris 9 Update releases, note the following name change:

Solaris Flash (formerly Web Start Flash)