Upgrading the Oracle Solaris OS

Upgrading, Error Messages

No upgradable disks

Cause: A swap entry in the /etc/vfstab file is causing the upgrade to fail.

Solution: Comment out the following lines in the /etc/vfstab file:

• All swap files and slices on disks not being upgraded

• Swap files that are no longer present

• Any unused swap slices

usr/bin/bzcat not found

Cause: Live Upgrade, a feature of Oracle Solaris, fails because of needing a patch cluster.

Solution: A patch is needed to install Live Upgrade. Ensure that you have the most recently updated patch list by consulting http://support.oracle.com (My Oracle Support). Search for the knowledge document 1004881.1 - Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements (formerly 206844) on My Oracle Support.

Upgradeable Solaris root devices were found, however, no suitable partitions to hold the Solaris install software were found. Upgrading using the Solaris Installer is not possible. It might be possible to upgrade using the Solaris Software 1 CDROM. (x86 based systems only)

Cause: You cannot upgrade with the Oracle Solaris Software - 1 CD because you do not have enough space.

Solution: To upgrade, you can either create a swap slice that is larger than or equal to 512 MB or use another method of upgrading such as the Oracle Solaris installation from Oracle Solaris Operating System DVD, a net installation image, or JumpStart.

ERROR: Could not select locale (x86 based systems only)

Cause: When you test your JumpStart profile by using the pfinstall -D command, the dry run test fails under the following conditions:

• The profile contains the locale keyword.

• You're testing a release that contains GRUB, a feature of Oracle Solaris, software. Starting with the Solaris 10 1/06 release, the GRUB boot loader facilitates booting different operating systems installed on your system with the GRUB menu.

With the introduction of GRUB software, the miniroot is compressed. The software can no longer find the list of locales from the compressed miniroot. The miniroot is the smallest possible Oracle Solaris root (/) file system and is found on the Oracle Solaris installation media.

Solution: Perform the following steps. Use the following values.

• MEDIA_DIR is /cdrom/cdrom0/

• MINIROOT_DIR is $MEDIA_DIR/Solaris_10/Tools/Boot

• MINIROOT_ARCHIVE is $MEDIA_DIR/boot/x86.miniroot

• TEMP_FILE_NAME is /tmp/test

1. Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

   Roles contain authorizations and privileged commands. For more information about roles, see Configuring RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Uncompress the miniroot archive.

   # /usr/bin/gzcat $MINIROOT_ARCHIVE > $TEMP_FILE_NAME

3. Create the miniroot device by using the lofiadm command.

   # LOFI_DEVICE=/usr/sbin/lofiadm -a $TEMP_FILE_NAME
   # echo $LOFI_DEVICE
   /dev/lofi/1

4. Mount the miniroot with the lofi command under the Miniroot directory.

   # /usr/sbin/mount -F ufs $LOFI_DEVICE $MINIROOT_DIR

5. Test the profile.

   # /usr/sbin/install.d/pfinstall -D -c $MEDIA_DIR $path-to-jumpstart_profile

6. After the testing is completed, unmount the lofi device.

   # umount $LOFI_DEVICE

7. Delete the lofi device.

   # lofiadm -d $TEMP_FILE_NAME

Upgrading, General Problems

The upgrade option is not presented even though there is a version of Solaris software that's upgradable on the system.

Cause: Reason 1: The /var/sadm directory is a symlink or it is mounted from another file system.

Solution: Reason 1: Move the /var/sadm directory into the root (/) or /var file system.

Cause: Reason 2: The /var/sadm/softinfo/INST_RELEASE file is missing.

Solution: Reason 2: Create a new INST_RELEASE file by using the following template:

OS=Solaris
VERSION=x 
REV=0

x

Is the version of Oracle Solaris software on the system

Cause: Reason 3: SUNWusr is missing from /var/sadm/softinfo.

Solution: Solution 3: You need to do an initial installation. The Oracle Solaris software is not upgradable.

Couldn't shut down or initialize the md driver

Solution: Follow these instructions:

• If the file system is not a RAID-1 volume, comment out in the vsftab file.

• If the file system is a RAID-1 volume, break the mirror and reinstall. For information about unmirroring, see Removing RAID-1 Volumes (Unmirroring) in Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.

The upgrade fails because the Solaris installation program cannot mount a file system.

Cause: During an upgrade, the script attempts to mount all the file systems that are listed in the system's /etc/vfstab file on the root (/) file system that is being upgraded. If the installation script cannot mount a file system, it fails and exits.

Solution: Ensure that all file systems in the system's /etc/vfstab file can be mounted. Comment out any file systems in the /etc/vfstab file that cannot be mounted or that might cause the problem so that the Oracle Solaris installation program does not try to mount them during the upgrade. Any system-based file systems that contain software to be upgraded (for example, /usr) cannot be commented out.

The upgrade fails

Description: The system does not have enough space for the upgrade.

Cause: Check Upgrading With Disk Space Reallocation in Oracle Solaris 10 8/11 Installation Guide: Planning for Installation and Upgrade for the space problem and see if you can fix it without using auto-layout to reallocate space.

Problems upgrading RAID–1 volume root (/) file systems

Solution: If you have problems upgrading when using Solaris Volume Manager RAID-1 volumes that are the root (/) file system, see Chapter 25, Troubleshooting Solaris Volume Manager (Tasks), in Solaris Volume Manager Administration Guide.