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Solaris Express Installation Guide: Solaris Live Upgrade and Upgrade Planning

x86: Activating a Boot Environment With the GRUB Menu

A GRUB menu provides an optional method of switching between boot environments. The GRUB menu is an alternative to activating (booting) with the luactivate command. The table below notes cautions and limitations when using the GRUB menu.

Table 5–3 x86: Activating With the GRUB Menu Summary

Task 

Description 

For More Information 

Caution

After you have activated a boot environment, do not change the disk order in the BIOS. Changing the order might cause the GRUB menu to become invalid. If this problem occurs, changing the disk order back to the original state fixes the GRUB menu. 

 

Activating a boot environment for the first time 

The first time you activate a boot environment, you must use the luactivate command. The next time you boot, that boot environment's name is displayed in the GRUB main menu. You can thereafter switch to this boot environment by selecting the appropriate entry in the GRUB menu.

To Activate a Boot Environment

Synchronizing files 

The first time you activate a boot environment, files are synchronized between the current boot environment and the new boot environment. With subsequent activations, files are not synchronized. When you switch between boot environments with the GRUB menu, files also are not synchronized. You can force a synchronization when using the luactivate command with the -s option.

To Activate a Boot Environment and Synchronize Files

Boot environments created before the Solaris 10 1/06 release

If a boot environment was created with the Solaris 8, 9, or 10 3/05 release, the boot environment must always be activated with the luactivate command. These older boot environments do not display on the GRUB menu.

To Activate a Boot Environment

Editing or customizing the GRUB menu entries 

The menu.lst file contains the information that is displayed in the GRUB menu. You can revise this file for the following reasons:

  • To add to the GRUB menu entries for operating systems other than the Solaris OS.

  • To customize booting behavior. For example, you could change booting to verbose mode or change the default time that automatically boots the OS.

Note –

If you want to change the GRUB menu, you need to locate the menu.lst file. For step-by-step instructions, see x86: Locating the GRUB Menu's menu.lst File (Tasks).

Caution – Caution –

Do not use the GRUB menu.lst file to modify Solaris Live Upgrade entries. Modifications could cause Solaris Live Upgrade to fail. Although you can use the menu.lst file to customize booting behavior, the preferred method for customization is to use the eeprom command. If you use the menu.lst file to customize, the Solaris OS entries might be modified during a software upgrade. Changes to the file could be lost.