Creating the Solaris Flash Archive

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. You can then create a Solaris Flash archive, which is a replica image of the master system. You can install the Solaris Flash archive on other systems in the network, creating clone systems.

This section describes how to create a Solaris Flash archive to use in your WAN boot installation. Before you create a Solaris Flash archive, you must first install the master system.

• For information about installing a master system, see Installing the Master System.

• For detailed information about Solaris Flash archives, see Chapter 18, Creating Solaris Flash Archives (Tasks).

To Create a Solaris Flash Archive

For detailed instructions about how to create a Solaris Flash archive, see Creating a Solaris Flash Archive.

1. Boot the master system.

   Run the master system in as inactive a state as possible. When possible, run the system in single-user mode. If that is not possible, shut down any applications that you want to archive and any applications that require extensive operating system resources.

2. To create the archive, use the flar create command.

   # flar create -n name [optional-parameters] document-root/flash/filename

   name

   The name that you give the archive. The name you specify is the value of the content_name keyword.

   optional-parameters

   You can use several options to the flar create command to customize your Solaris Flash archive. For detailed descriptions of these options, see Chapter 20, Solaris Flash (Reference).

   document-root/flash

   The path to the Solaris Flash subdirectory of the install server's document root directory.

   filename

   The name of the archive file.

   To conserve disk space, you might want to use the -c option to the flar create command to compress the archive. However, a compressed archive can affect the performance of your WAN boot installation. For more information about creating a compressed archive, see the man page flar create(1M).

   • If the archive creation is successful, the flar create command returns an exit code of 0.

   • If the archive creation fails, the flar create command returns a nonzero exit code.

For examples of how to create a Solaris Flash archive, see Examples—Creating an Archive for an Initial Install.